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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787033">Apex</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPilgrim/pseuds/MercuryPilgrim'>MercuryPilgrim</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Apex [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And a bad man, And probably terrify most normal Imperials, Angst, Cipher Nine is an awful person, Cipher Nine is why Theron can't have nice things, Ciphers are... something, Imperial Agent is complicated, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt Fill, Scheming, Theron is confused, Theron makes bad choices, Traps, Unhealthy Relationships, breakdowns</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 01:21:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,300</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787033</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPilgrim/pseuds/MercuryPilgrim</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cipher Nine is a wicked, wicked man.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Male Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Theron Shan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Apex [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007601</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. "Tell me that when you’re sober."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Cipher Nine makes an impression on his opposite number.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Theron Shan.”</p><p>Kriff, he would never be able to get used to his name being said in that <em>voice</em>.</p><p>The drawl over the vowels, dragging the sounds out like Theron wanted that body dragged over his.</p><p>
  <em>Shaaaahn.</em>
</p><p>The clipped consonants, precise and measured, the sound of a dangerous smile softening them just enough for him to notice.</p><p>That voice could be sharp and commanding on the battlefield, a snap of authority that set his stomach flipping when all the gunfire stopped.</p><p>It could be harsh and cold, professional in a way that Theron <em>adored</em>, because he was a guy who could appreciate badassery when he saw it.</p><p>Or heard it.</p><p>It could be low and dark, a filthy cadence like velvet over his skin. Heat and sex and knives in one murmured sound.</p><p>No matter when Theron heard it, there was always an undercurrent of danger than he couldn’t shake and tried to pretend didn’t turn him on like nothing else seemed to.</p><p>Theron had heard of Cipher Nine before he had ever set eyes on the man and hadn’t thought too much on him until the reports just didn’t seem to <em>stop</em>. Just another enemy asset to be investigated and catalogued. He wasn’t even Theron’s job.</p><p>Information was patchy at best, considering the subject, and they had been lucky to get even that much. Theron suspected that several ops and a few cover IDs had been blown just to get what little they had.</p><p>Slower than the SIS would have liked, they began to build a profile of the newest weapon the Empire had at its disposal.</p><p>The report never seemed to stop growing, just like the trail of bodies and completed missions Cipher Nine left behind. The shitshow with Ardun Kothe had netted them their biggest haul of intel, which almost made of for the months of cleanup.</p><p>Someone had managed to snap a few hurried, half hidden images of him, and suddenly Theron had to admit that he had spent a little too much time imagining catching up to the illusive agent.</p><p>The first image had been on Hutta, timestamped as only a few months prior to Theron seeing it. The agent was smirking as he leaned against a bar, all lazy confidence, and sleek lines. He was dressed in the garb of a mercenary, practical and a little stylish. The Chiss had a rogues smile, his dusky blue skin and half lidded crimson eyes making him stand out against the sickly yellow and green of the lighting. He was talking to someone, and the nervous human didn’t seem to be enjoying the agents smile as much as Theron was.</p><p>The fabric of his shirt stretched over his shoulders in a way that Theron refused to linger on.</p><p>The next one was a miracle of spywork, considering it had been taken <em>during</em> the siege of the <em>Brentaal Star. </em></p><p>The Chiss was in uniform, grey and slim fitting, leather accents making him cut an impressive figure in the stark emergency lighting of the ship. He was holding a rifle and firing, the muzzle flash obscuring part of the still taken by a shit helm cam.</p><p>His expression was focussed and cold as Hoth, and it made Theron shiver like it too. Leather gloved hands gripped the rifle and his stance let Theron’s gaze linger on parts of his body accented by the Intelligence uniform.</p><p>Why did the Empire have such tight-fitting uniforms? Why did they make their wearers asses look so good?</p><p>A true galactic mystery.</p><p>The last image seemed to have been taken in some unidentified place, dingy and lit by strips of neon. It looked like a club or bar, and the Chiss was leaning into the space of a flustered looking Togruta in a padawan's robes, smiling that holo-movie smile at the poor young Jedi.</p><p>Theron knew the padawan had ended up in a room with the Chiss, unable to resist the dangerous charm the agent could command. The Chiss had left with a satisfied smile, his mouth kiss-bitten and the route for Ambassador Drolik's SIS escort in his mind.</p><p>Ambassador Drolik had never made it to his summit, dead with his throat cut open in his own motorcade and a political message from a local faction scrawled on the inside of the window, simulating an act of terror to mask the assassination.</p><p>That had been a shit show to deal with, but Theron couldn’t help by be professionally impressed by his Imperial counterpart.</p><p>It was obvious the man was nowhere near <em>nice</em>, and SIS psychoanalysts had tentatively labelled him a sociopath.</p><p>That was a point in the ‘against’ column.</p><p>But he'd seduced a <em>Jedi.</em></p><p>A padawan, but his point still stood.</p><p>Theron had been curious, but ultimately it hadn’t been interesting enough to fixate on. Besides, he had other things to worry about.</p><p>Then he had met the man for the first time, and he was fucking <em>gone.</em></p><p>The Chiss was all feline grace, tall and lithe and put-together, even in the jungles of Yavin. Their command centre was little better than a jumble of tarpaulins and an oversized table, but he made the whole thing that little bit more polished, just by being there.</p><p>He brushed a strand of neat dark hair from his brow, his grin a perfect invitation.</p><p>Theron knew that kind of invitation might kill him, so he pretended not to see it.</p><p>He had never thought about the Chiss as a species very much, but suddenly he was becoming acutely aware that the deep blue skin and fathomless red eyes was a very alluring combination, especially presented to him wearing form fitting armour and a holo-vid smile that flashed white teeth.</p><p>Then he <em>spoke</em> and Theron was fucking done.</p><p>“Theron Shan, I presume? I always wanted to meet the man behind the file.”</p><p>That Imperial accent was fucking <em>perfect</em> with his lovely voice, and Theron was now fully aware that he was staring.</p><p>He had a thing for Imperial accents.</p><p>Fuck, the only thing worse than admitting that would be if he told his boss that he had a Sith-fetish.</p><p>Which he did <em>not.</em></p><p>That Kaasian drawl did things to him, and all the parts came together in one lovely, dangerous Imperial package.</p><p>‘Imperial’ being the operative word.</p><p>The agent was deadly, confident, and gorgeous in a way that Theron had only used to describe big cats in the Axial Park zoo.</p><p>It was against about a hundred regulations to even have a thought about an Imp, let alone an Imp agent. An Imp <em>Cipher</em> Agent was grounds for a court martial on the spot, he was sure.</p><p>Not that Theron could remember more than four or five of those regulations, considering the SIS handbook was so old Theron was surprised it hadn’t been given to him on flimsi. He vaguely remembered a paragraph about making your blaster into an emergency grenade with only caf, copper spools and a fuse.</p><p>Still, a man could fantasize, right? He hadn’t seen Beryon in days despite being in the same camp, and well, their relationship wasn’t much more than <em>really</em> satisfying sex.</p><p>No one had to know that in private, during the hours of the night when he knew he was truly alone, many of his fantasies seemed to come back around to blue skin, half lidded red eyes, and wicked smiles.</p><p>Theron didn’t feel <em>too</em> guilty, since it felt rather like the silly fantasies he’d had with celebrities or holo-stars when he was younger.</p><p>He didn’t <em>know </em>these people, they were just characters he could conveniently pose in his head like dolls.</p><p>Of course, Theron actually ended up <em>meeting </em>the object of his fantasy, and you know what they said about meeting your heroes?</p><p>Absolute banthashit.</p><p>Disregarding he fact that Cipher Nine was not much of a hero, Theron was now lumped with a lust crush the size of a cruiser, and had Lana Beniko throwing him knowing, amused looks whenever she saw him start to drool when he should have been working.</p><p>Cipher Nine was a wicked, wicked man.</p>
<hr/><p>Yavin was fairly terrible at the best of times, but it was immeasurably worse when one was under fire.</p><p>Theron and his little squad had been following up on some intel about Revanite movements and had gotten themselves spotted.</p><p>Cursing up a storm as he furiously tried to return fire through the hail of shots that were pinning his team, Theron mashed his holocom off again.</p><p>There was nothing to hack out here in the ruins, nothing to use as a convenient distraction or escape. Besides, he had a team with him. He couldn’t simply blend into the non-existent crowd and disappear.</p><p>He winced as a particularly well-placed shot sent slivers of ancient stonework exploding around him.</p><p>“What’s happening, Shan?” Lieutenant Gillin grunted as she bravely risked a glance over their cover. She hastily ducked back down as a volley of shots peppered over their heads.</p><p>They were in a good defensible position, but there was no way out without being spotted. Theron cursed their luck, or lack thereof.</p><p>“Command says they’re working on it,” he replied, doing a quick headcount. Five, not including himself. That was good.</p><p>Two were injured, which was less good. One of them was <em>him</em>, and he winced as he tried to move the leg that was bleeding over the mossy stone slabs. He’d bound it as best he could, but he was no medic, and working under this kind of sustained fire wasn’t easy.</p><p>It hurt enough to send the corners of his vision fuzzy, and he felt a cold sweat coat his skin.</p><p>Gillin grunted as she hunkered down, her blossom pink skin looking out of place amongst the grey and green of the jungle ruins, and she was bruised and tired but alive.</p><p>Her montrals were wrapped and out of the way, but Theron still didn’t like to think about how much it must hurt if one got clipped with a round.</p><p>“Command had better work fast,” she muttered, returning a few optimistic shots that sounded like they hit stone instead of Revanite.</p><p>The rest of the team were in a similar position, in cover but getting tired. The Revanites didn’t seem to have any Force users with them, which was lucky. Theron vowed never to accompany a team without a Jedi on it ever again.</p><p>His comm beeped at him, and he almost fumbled it as he rushed to answer.</p><p>“Shan, this is Command,” the voice rang out, and he wanted to snap at them that <em>he knew that, get to the point. </em>The Republic comms officer sounded grim, and Theron’s belly sank. “We’ve got no squads close to you, but the Imperials have an asset in play close to your location.”</p><p>Theron blinked, and he noted Gillin staring at the comm. The Imperials were sharing their intel? Their troop movements? Surprising.</p><p>“Asset is inbound, Shan. Eight minutes.”</p><p>Eight minutes was… better than he had expected, honestly.</p><p>“What’s the backup, Command? We’ve got wounded here.” he asked, mind working at a thousand miles an hour. A squad? A fighter coming in for a strafe? The Wrath coming in to tear through anything in his way? If Ven’fir came through that treeline with his sabers drawn and the Force at his fingertips, Theron would <em>kiss</em> him. Well, maybe not. It was hard enough to keep Beryon and Ven’firfrom tearing each other apart without Theron planting one on the one Sith his fuckbuddy hated most in the galaxy.</p><p>“Don’t know that, Shan,” Command grunted, clearly displeased. “Just… hold on, alright?”</p><p>The holocall ended, and Theron was left staring at his communicator.</p><p>So, the Imperials weren’t sharing <em>everything</em>.</p><p>Figured.</p><p>He glanced to Gillin, his fingers tight around his blaster.</p><p>“Dig in. Eight minutes until backup arrives.” He muttered, and her gaze was intense. Her skin was bruised and damp from the humidity, and she was as exhausted as Theron himself was.</p><p>If only Beryon were here.</p><p>“Eight minutes until Imps join in the fight,” she grunted, something disbelieving in her voice. “And to think, that used to be a <em>bad</em> thing.”</p>
<hr/><p>Six and a half minutes later, Theron’s comm chirped again.</p><p>Snatching it up and wiping stinging sweat from his eyes, he flicked it on.</p><p>“Shan? Backup’s in play.”</p><p>Command sounded harried and Theron opened his mouth to respond when a sound like the air shattering hit his eardrums.</p><p>There was a strange moment of quiet after such an intense moment of sound, and all Theron could hear was his own ears ringing.</p><p>Then, he heard the Revanites shouting.</p><p>“<em>Sniper!”</em></p><p>The call went up, and then there was <em>panic.</em></p><p>The sniper was perched somewhere on the ruins further away from them and must have gotten up high.</p><p>The sound of a high-powered round being fired hit his ears again, and the shouting got louder. There were still rounds being aimed at them, but they began to peter out as the Revanites realised that their own cover wasn’t shielding them from the snipers sights.</p><p>They scrambled, and Gillin poked her head over their trusty bit on masonry.</p><p>Her eyes were wide, and she brought up her own rifle.</p><p>“They’re panicking!” she called with vicious enthusiasm, “Open fire!”</p><p>Theron wasn’t going to miss such an opportunity and popped his own head out from behind his piece of wall, trying to ignore how his leg screamed at him for moving. He popped off a few shots with his blaster and saw at least one go down.</p><p>The Revanites were indeed scrambling, their cohesion falling apart as the sniper kept firing. Whoever was up there was making it look <em>easy</em>, although it must have been like shooting oob-fish in a barrel.</p><p>There was a rhythmic quality to the shots, almost <em>lazy </em>in how the sniper picked off enemy after enemy.</p><p>Their own team weren’t so tired that they couldn’t capitalise on this kind of carnage, and more Revanites fell to their fire.</p><p>By the time the call went up for a retreat, it was already too late. The remaining Revanites made to escape back into the undergrowth but rapid shots put them down as they ran.</p><p><em>Definitely</em> an Imperial, then.</p><p>At least, the jungle was quiet.</p><p>Kind of.</p><p>Their own people were making noise as they secured the area, and Theron allowed himself to collapse.</p><p>Gillin was immediately by his side, gloved hands propping him up as she scowled at him.</p><p>“Why did you fucking move?” she hissed, peering at his leg.</p><p>He grinned at her through a wave of fuzzy headed interference.</p><p>“Like I could let you take all the glory,” he teased, and she huffed.</p><p>“I think that sniper takes most of it,” she grunted as she unwrapped bandages from her pack and withdrew a med stim that Theron could see was one of the orange ones. Painkiller. The good stuff. “I can’t believe we have to thank an <em>Imp</em>.”</p><p>Before he could respond she jammed the stim into his arm and he winced, feeling nothing but the prick of the injector as it released painkillers into his system.</p><p>“I’d rather thank an Imp than he mown down by Revanites,” he pointed out, and she nodded grudgingly.</p><p>A small commotion made them both look up, seeing their squad aiming their weapons towards the edge of the ruins.</p><p>A figure was heading towards them, unheeding of the guns pointed at them.</p><p>Theron was beginning to feel floaty and things were looking very colourful right now, but he wasn’t so far under that he couldn’t recognise Cipher Nine when he saw him.</p><p>He grinned.</p><p>“Thanks for the assist, Nine.” He called, and Gillin stared at him.</p><p>Cipher Nine ignored the rest of the squad as he headed for Theron.</p><p>He was dressed in his customary white armour over a black under suit, and he was cradling a monster of a rifle in his hands. His blue skin had a faint sheen to it as he got closer, and his hair was rumpled and coming free from the gel that kept it in its usual professional style.</p><p>“Agent Shan,” the Chiss greeted, eyes piercing as he surveyed him. Theron felt quite naked under that crimson gaze, and his brain supplied him with some nice images to go with it. “Is it too much to ask for that you stay uninjured the moment you’re out of Lord Beniko’s sight?”</p><p>So, Lana had been worried.</p><p>Sweet, but he was still angry with her.</p><p>Gillin stepped half in front of Theron, meeting the Chiss gaze with her own steely one.</p><p>“ID.” She demanded, “Now.”</p><p>Cipher Nine grinned, flashing her a holo-movie smile.</p><p>“It’ll be fake.” He assured with the kind of teasing quality that was more mean than playful. “Still want it?”</p><p>At her taken aback expression, he chuckled, adjusting his grip on his rifle. His armour was smeared with mud here and there and one of his throwing knives was gone from the brace over his chest. The blaster at his hip and the machete sheathed at the small of his back were still present, and Theron wondered how often he needed to use them.</p><p>“Cipher Nine,” he introduced himself smoothly, “Imperial Intelligence.”</p><p>“Intelligence is shut down,” Theron pointed out, brain floating into space and coming back to Yavin as diamond rain. “And you’re out of a job.”</p><p>The Chiss smiled at him, but his eyes were sharp.</p><p>“Mm, that’s what <em>you</em> think.” He murmured, hefting the huge gun in his hands over a shoulder. Theron heard the mag clips do their thing and lock the weapon into place on his back as it compacted down to a less cumbersome size.</p><p>That was nifty. Maybe he could find someone that would make his blaster do that? He could fold it down and hide it in his pants when he was going incognito.</p><p>Nine nodded to Gillin.</p><p>“He’s the most injured, yes?” he asked, and she nodded, expression flinty and tired.</p><p>“Yeah. Minor injuries on the rest.” She admitted, glancing at Theron with concern.</p><p>So many people were looking at him. He felt very special.</p><p>“Evac is on its way,” the Chiss murmured, stepping closer to Theron and kneeling down to be closer to him.</p><p>He was a pretty, dusky blue colour, and Theron was sure there was a shade or two of purple in there too.</p><p>He even had a spray of blue freckles over his nose and cheeks, and Theron wanted to touch them. His arms were made of stone though, so he couldn’t.</p><p>His hair looked blue-black in the strong sunlight, and the scar that curved under his eye was thrown into sharp relief. Theron could see how his eyelashes looked as he studied him, and how his mouth fell into a grim line as he studied Theron for more injuries.</p><p>“You’re lucky I came along when I did,” he murmured, and Theron was a balloon tied with a stone string. “I’m not your guardian angel, Shan.”</p><p>Theron grinned, and from how the Chiss’ lips twitched upwards, it was a funny looking expression.</p><p>The agent moved to touch his face with gloved fingertips, and they were cool enough to make Theron sigh as they made contact with his overheated skin.</p><p>“Ooh I <em>love</em> you,” he breathed at the pleasant sensation, the world running like paint and reforming over and over.</p><p>The agent above him tilted his head and gave him a thin smile, his fingers coming to rest at Theron’s jaw. Gently, he used two fingertips to direct Theron to look at him properly.</p><p>The touch was feather light and it made Theron shiver, and he watched as the agent leaned close enough for him to be able to count the individual freckles on his cheeks.</p><p>“Tell me that when you’re sober.” the Chiss breathed, full mouth curving into a dangerous smile. Theron felt himself slipping away under that cool, sharp gaze, his stomach twisting with <em>something</em>.</p>
<hr/><p>When he woke, Cipher Nine was watching him in a way that made Theron feel like an insect under the gaze of a hungry mantis. He offered an awkward, confused smile to the Chiss that lounged in the chair next to his bed like it was a throne and got a sharklike smile in return. He wasn't sure why Cipher Nine was at his bedside, and he felt a twinge of guilt for being pleased it was him. Beryon deserved better.</p><p>Theron told himself the flush on his cheeks was from the heat and humidity, and that the squirming in his belly was the last vestiges of an inconvenient crush leaving his body.</p><p>He smiled back and kept lying to himself.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A friend of mine got me onto the headcanon wagon that Theron has a thing for Imperial accents, since he gets so flustered with flirted with by an Imperial PC. Also, the Male Imperial Agent has a lovely voice when he's not doing a terrible American-Sorry, Republic accent.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. “I love you.” “You shouldn’t.”</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>History repeats itself.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The party is boring, and the booze is cheap, so Samara is wishing she were somewhere else.</p><p>Obenth is chatting her ear off about some nonsense that she knows he got off the holonet, and honestly, she could just scream for something to break the dullness.</p><p>He’s decent enough as an armpiece until she can find someone more interesting, and preferably someone who doesn’t get all his political opinions from the holonet forums.</p><p>“-good are Mandalorians if they can’t escort a few trade shipments? It’s not like we need them for the war.”</p><p>She rolls her eyes, bored stiff of his complaining. Who cares about this kind of stuff? There’s fun to be had if one isn’t so determined to drive off any potential conversationalist with regurgitated political opinions.</p><p>“Stop obsessing about the mercenaries, Obenth.” She advises from inside her wineglass, and it comes out cattier than she had aimed for. When he looks offended, she suddenly doesn’t feel so bad anymore. “You <em>wish</em> you could carry a vibroblade.”</p><p>His brows crease and he looks like he’s about to launch into another diatribe, but perhaps he reads something in her face because he just sighs instead.</p><p>“You get vicious after a while, don’t you?” he says with a raised eyebrow, his cheeks pink.</p><p>Yes, she thinks, I do. Read the room, dear.</p><p>“Sure.” She says instead in the verbal equivalent of a shrug, spotting the door open and other patrons turning to stare at whoever has entered. Finally, a distraction from her peers. “I’m going to talk to someone else now.”</p><p>Obenth is left protesting and she walks away without another word to him, placing her empty glass on the tray of a serving droid and picking up another one in the same motion.</p><p>The people closest to the door are murmuring and glancing over at the newcomers, so naturally Samara is interested.</p><p>She sips her wine and heads over, noting their distinct <em>otherness</em>.</p><p>They’re <em>aliens</em>, for one, and one of them looks rough enough for the bouncers to not let her in. And <em>yet</em>.</p><p>The man is more interesting. He’s one of those blue ones, a <em>Chiss</em>, and he’s watching the room with a look she’s seen on some of the people that come to speak with her father.</p><p>Neither of them is dressed for a party, the woman, some hairless, white skinned thing with strange tattoos on her skin, is dressed in worn leathers and catches Samara’s eye. She grins wide, and Samara feels like she might eat her.</p><p>The Chiss looks like he’s stepped out of a holomag, and even if he’s not human, Samara can appreciate how he’s put together. Dark hair is pushed back from his brow in a slick style, and he fills out his armour like a <em>dream.</em></p><p>They’re both armed, and that sends a bit of a thrill down her spine. Hm, perhaps tonight will provide some entertainment after all?</p><p>She sidles over, curious, and vaguely notes Obenth trailing after her like a lost puppy.</p><p>Has he not got the hint that she isn’t interested?</p><p>Whatever.</p><p>She draws close and sees how they both look at her. It’s a bit of a thrill to have their attention.</p><p>She smiles and sips her wine, getting the feeling that she’s being mustered.</p><p>“Well,” she greets, “Look at <em>you.</em> Enjoying yourself? It’s not the worst party I’ve ever been to, but it needs improvement, you know?”</p><p>It’s true, too.</p><p>The Chiss gives her a smile that’s off a holomovie, and she can see that he’s got a spray of dark blue freckles over his nose.</p><p>Those eyes are a bit unnerving, solid red with only the barest hint of a pupil and iris, but hey- perhaps aliens are good for something after all?</p><p>“I can imagine,” he replies, and little gods, even his <em>voice</em> is attractive.  “I think things might be looking up, now.”</p><p>She likes the confidence, but she also likes playing the game.</p><p>She shrugs, taking another sip.</p><p>“I get that a lot,” she says with honesty, “Not usually from guys like you though. Military guys, I mean.”</p><p>She’s not just a pretty face, and she surveys him from under her lashes.</p><p>“You <em>are</em> military, right?” she asks coyly, already knowing the answer. “You’ve got that kind of ‘in-charge’ look. And the weapons.”</p><p>He chuckles, nodding.</p><p>“You mean to tell me that this isn’t standard party attire?” he asks, gesturing to his armour and the weaponry on his person. From where she is, she can see a rifle strapped to his back, a pistol at his thigh, a brace of knives over his chest and the handle of another, larger blade sheathed at the small of his back. It’s… well, it’s impressive.</p><p>She smiles back.</p><p>“Not usually, no. Usually you need to have an invitation, too.”</p><p>Those eyes are strangely intense, and something strange twists her gut with how he looks at her.</p><p>“I’m very charming,” he assured, murmuring and sly. “They let me in.”</p><p>She raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“I’ll bet they did.” She mutters, casting an eye over his form again. If he had been human, she would have already dragged him off to the coat room.</p><p>He hears her anyway but doesn’t comment, his smile widening.</p><p>“Does that ‘in-charge look’ have an appeal?” he asks, and he’s not being subtle. She’s never liked subtle, much.</p><p>She shrugs again, feigning disinterest. This is already more fun than the rest of the party combined.</p><p>“Perhaps,” she allows, taking another sip of her wine. “It depends if you’ve got more than the look.”</p><p>He’s about to respond when she feels a presence at her elbow.</p><p>Obenth is hovering <em>again</em>, and she feels irritation spike through her belly. He never did know how to take no for an answer.</p><p>“Samara, be <em>careful</em>.” he hisses, eyeing up the two aliens with trepidation. And to think, he had been getting fiery about Mandalorians not doing their jobs earlier, as if he would have ‘set them straight’. “You need to take this seriously-“</p><p>“Shut up Obenth,” she spits, temper finally boiling over. “I said that I’m <em>done</em> with you.”</p><p>No more hints.</p><p>Obenth looks hurt and angry splotches are appearing on his cheeks, but she doesn’t care. He’s been following her around for hours.</p><p>He wilts under her glare, and she turns back to the Chiss, plastering on a smile.</p><p>“So,” she purrs, turning up the flirting to salt Obenth’s wounds. “How can I serve the Empire?”</p><p>He’s smile is alluring, but for some reason she feels like getting closer might be a mistake.</p><p>“Mm, you’re Samara Mindak, yes?”</p><p>She blinks, surprised.</p><p>“Yes?” she replies, before settling again. “Yes, I am. Not just anyone gets to talk to me, either. Luckily for you, I’m in the mood for someone new.”</p><p>That last bit is a jab at Obenth, who is <em>still there.</em></p><p>He doesn’t even notice, which is typical.</p><p>The Chiss tilts his head, and she narrows her eyes at him.</p><p>“You are military, right?” she drawls, taking a deep draught from her glass. “A very special alien officer, allowed into the best cantinas on Dromund Kaas?”</p><p>The Chiss regards her from under his lashes, and she thinks his smile is a little sharp.</p><p>“Oh, I’m not usually allowed in. Don’t worry, they still turn people like me away at the door.” He assures, and perhaps she’s pressed on a sore spot. Whatever. “I’m not military, either.”</p><p>His posture seems to loosen, and the way he’s looking at her makes her want to let him do whatever he wants if he doesn’t take his eyes off her.</p><p>“I’m with Imperial Intelligence.”</p><p>That’s a surprise, but not a big one.</p><p>She’s probably had a bit too much to drink by this point, but everything seems so fun now, a departure from the previous monotony of the party.</p><p>“Oh, I see.” She grins, “Going to make me mysteriously disappear?”</p><p>The Chiss laughs, and she wants to him to keep doing that because of her forever. If she can make him laugh again, she’ll consider this a good night.</p><p>“Samara-!”</p><p>She ignores Obenth completely, instead stepping a little closer to her new friend.</p><p>He looks amused, and up close he’s even lovelier.</p><p>“Would you like me to?” he asks, and that voice has dropped to a purr and-</p><p>Well, she never did like subtle much. It’s obvious from the way he’s smiling at her that he doesn’t mean to dump her body down the garbage chute or whatever it is that ImpInt did, and despite that fact that he’s an <em>alien</em>, she’s tempted.</p><p>Pretty skin and eyes aside, it would cause a bit of a stir, leaving with a man like this.</p><p>She grins.</p><p>“You know,” she murmurs, “I think I would.”</p><p>She steps closer again and she sees him watch her every movement as she does. It makes her shiver, to have that attention on her.</p><p>“My father doesn’t approve of military guys,” she murmurs, brain working through the pickle of wine and attention. “He says it’s hard to know what they’re really after.”</p><p>She watches him for a reaction, and he just grins.</p><p>“Your father is a smart man,” he says easily, “But right now I’m only interested in you. We can discuss later <em>later</em>.”</p><p>To the void with it.</p><p>She’s not going to pass up a chance to spend some quality time with a man like <em>this</em> and cause a stir at the same time. Besides, now Obenth can see that she’d rather fuck an alien than <em>him</em>.</p><p>She giggles, and carefully lets a hand rest on the chestplate of his armour. She’s careful not to touch any of the blades, and she feels his hands settle demurely on her waist.</p><p>He bends his head to murmur to her, and she shivers when his mouth brushes the shell of her ear.</p><p>“Show me around, sweetheart?” he breathes, and she can smell ozone and something citrus that makes her want to breathe him in forever. He’s extremely warm and she idly wonders what it will be like to screw an alien.</p><p>She smiles and takes his hand.</p><p>“For you? Of course.”</p><hr/><p>She’s coming back to herself as he stretches, and she runs her eyes over how the lines of his back catch the light.</p><p>His skin is a pleasant shade of dusky blue, and she swears she can detect a blush of purple in there somewhere. There are a few scars that twist his flesh away from perfection, but she likes them. They make him so different from the people she usually takes home, fumbling fops or immature braggadocios. He’s intense and she’s under no illusions why he’s here.</p><p>She smiles, brushing hair from her brow. Her makeup is long gone, wiped away before they started.</p><p>“So,” she starts, and drops her gaze to the curve of his ass as he turns slightly. “Let’s talk business.”</p><p>He grins, white teeth flashing against dark skin. His hair is pushed back from his lovely face, and she knows that the delicate spray of freckles over his nose and cheeks is mirrored over his shoulders too and collarbones too.</p><p>He looks at her like he might eat her alive as they talk and he dresses, and she swallows down a twinge of nerves. It occurs that he could simply kill her now he’s done with her, but she must trust that he won’t.</p><p>Looking into those eyes, it’s a hard sell.</p><p>She sells her father out without batting an eyelash and secures his accounts for herself.</p><p>When he leans in to kiss her goodbye, her toes curl.</p><p>“Bye darling,” she teases, strangely conflicted to see him go. She wants him to stay so that she can keep that addicting attention, but she also wants him to leave so she can <em>breathe.</em> “Love you.”</p><p>He chuckles at her game, brushing a kiss over her cheek.</p><p>“Love you too, dear.” He winks, and he pulls away. He’s gone before she can think again, and it feels like a weight is gone from her shoulders. She breathes out, shaky and like she’s been out riding speeders too fast again. She suddenly feels weak and she shakes, flopping back to lay on her bed with a sigh.</p><p>Her belly twists and she hopes that she never sees him again.</p><hr/><p>There are others, and he answers them in the same way.</p><p>Sometimes it’s said as the joke like Samara had meant it as, an amusing quip about their arrangement.</p><p>Sometimes it’s genuine, the words of the naïve and the innocent.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>He smiles and makes them feel special as he lies to them.</p><p>“I love you too.”</p><hr/><p>He's breathing heavily, and he's sure one of his ribs is cracked.</p><p>His body is screaming at him for rest, and he can feel the agony of a jostled implant in his spine scraping against bone.</p><p>He tastes blood and rage.</p><p>There's a hand touching his face, worn rough from a life lived with a gun in their hand.</p><p>Hunter smiles at him, teeth bloody, and eyes hazy.</p><p>They're looking at him like they’ve never seen him before, like he’s a sunset or meteor shower or another once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.</p><p>“<em>Look</em> at you,” Hunter breathes through the blood filling their lungs, their thumb leaving a smear of hot blood against his cheek. He isn’t sure whose it is. “Look what we <em>did</em> to you.”</p><p>It's spoken in wonder, blood over a faint smile.</p><p>Nine feels it. Feels how his body betrays him and his mind doesn’t respond like it used to.</p><p>His control is shot and if Intelligence saw him like this, they might just take him out back and shoot him.</p><p>His hands tremor now, and the deep gouge under his eye is healing slowly. It'll scar, and that hurts more than the torture that gave it to him.</p><p>Identifying marks are so <em>inconvenient</em>.</p><p>He smiles, and its cracked and broken.</p><p>Hunter just sighs as though he’s beautiful.</p><p>“I told you I would hunt you down, didn’t I?” he murmurs, brutal loathing brushing gentle fingers over his senses. There’s hate filling his belly and his fingers itch to <em>hurt.</em></p><p>He wants to hurt, to take his pound of flesh for what was taken from him.</p><p>Hunter nods, and that seems to hurt enough for them to wince.</p><p><em>Good</em>, he thinks viciously.</p><p>“You did,” they agree, “I knew you would. You’re an animal, you know. A monster, just like us.”</p><p>They’re right, but he doesn’t care. He’s numb. He’s burned out from the inside and he’s withered under the Restraints, shutting down and retreating inside himself as his sense of self is chipped away until there’s barely anything left of him.</p><p>There’s something <em>wrong</em> with him, and he can feel it. Like a speeder with a warning light on the dash, limping home because he <em>can’t stop now.</em></p><p>“I’ve always been a monster,” he assures, taking in their face. “You just caged me, starved me and used me.”</p><p>Hunter’s smile widens, and they look pleased with themselves.</p><p>“We <em>did</em>,” they breathe, proud. “And you were so much better than I expected. The best enemy I could have hoped for.”</p><p>Cipher Nine tilts his head, and he gently, with the touch of a lover, drops his hand to curl around Hunter’s throat.</p><p>Hunter leans into it with a bloodstained smile, their own hand moving painfully to wind in his hair.</p><p>“I love you.” They sigh, and Cipher Nine can tell they’re fading.</p><p>He wants to kill them himself.</p><p>He <em>needs</em> it.</p><p>He leans in and feels how cool their skin has become. Hunter shudders as he presses close, their hand gripping harder to keep him there.</p><p>“I love you too.” he murmurs and presses his mouth to theirs.</p><p>He tastes blood and hate, and he feels Hunter smile into the kiss.</p><p>He tightens his grip and draws away suddenly as he wrenches their neck to the side with a sickening crack.</p><p>Their eyes are wide and incongruously surprised, and the hand tangled in his hair goes limp and falls, catching on his armour before hitting the floor.</p><p>He’s still for a moment, looking dispassionately at the corpse, before he stands up and with a last glance at the glassy eyes he doesn't bother to close, turns away.</p><p>He’s not finished yet, and what’s one more lie to add to the list?</p><hr/><p>Theron is looking at him so softly that he wants to hate him.</p><p>The Republic agent is pressed close, hands grasping his lapels as his eyes search Kal’s own.</p><p>“Kal?” he breathes, and Kal’s spine itches with the urge to bolt. He’s unsteady and he loathes the feeling. Theron always manages to worm his way into Kal’s broken parts until he can curl around his heart like the parasite he is.</p><p>Kal wants to wrap his hands around his neck and kiss him until they go back to how they were before.</p><p>No feelings, just sex.</p><p>It’s all he knows how to be, and he can’t be <em>weak.</em></p><p>Can’t be unsure, can’t regret, and can’t question.</p><p>Theron makes him feel all those things, and Kal blames himself for going back time and time again like a fly to poisoned honey.</p><p>It was fine in the beginning, when it was just banter and flirting and a fuck now and then, when he was still in control and Theron was dancing to <em>his</em> tune.</p><p>Only Theron was getting under his skin without him realising it, the sly little thing.</p><p>He swallows, and he feels unpleasantly naked under that honey gaze.</p><p>“Don’t say it,” he whispers, and once it might have been an order but now it comes out more like a plea.</p><p>Theron looks… sad.</p><p>He should be angry. Kal can handle angry. He can shut himself off and brush them aside, go back to being the untouchable monster he is.</p><p>Theron holds him, and Kal can twist out of a hold like this easily, but Theron’s grip feels like its unbreakable. No escape.</p><p>He seems to sense that Kal is <em>this</em> close to bolting, and already soft look gains a few degrees more of pity.</p><p>Kal detests that too.</p><p>One of Theron’s hands moves to brush over his cheek, thumb running over the deep scar under his eye.</p><p>“I love you,” he says like he’s sorry to be saying it.</p><p>So he should be.</p><p>Kal breathes in and he feels it catch. It feels like poison gripping his lungs and his heart.</p><p>He’s shaking, and this is <em>too much.</em></p><p>“Shut up.” He snaps, and Theron just smiles again, sad and soft.</p><p>“I <em>love</em> you,” he says again, and it’s like another blade to his heart. It <em>hurts.</em></p><p>He should say it back.</p><p>Theron might even believe him.</p><p>He opens his mouth but the words stick somewhere in his throat, and he can’t say them.</p><p>“You shouldn’t.” he whispers instead, and his eyes are wet. He’s begging, and he <em>despises </em>Theron for making him do this. Hates him for how weak he makes him, wants to hurt him for the feelings he evokes.</p><p>Theron just chuckles, and his own eyes look a little misty.</p><p>“I know,” he allows, “Too late, though.”</p><p>Kal feels the sob rise in his throat and he can’t stop it. What’s happened to him? To his control? This man has stripped him of it.</p><p>He ignores the small thought that says that maybe, he never had it in the first place and the cracks are just finally too big to hide.</p><p>Theron draws him close, wrapping his arms around him and shouldering him as Kal’s knees almost buckle.</p><p>He clings to him even as he thinks about planting a knife in his back to rid himself of the source of this <em>flaw</em>.</p><p>His hands shake, but it doesn’t matter. Theron is either strong enough to carry for him for a while, or Kal will drag him down with him.</p><p>“I hate you.” He croaks as Theron’s shirt develops a wet spot.</p><p>He feels Theron’s chuckle as he hears it, and he’s so <em>warm</em>.</p><p>“Yeah,” Theron mutters with a little grin, sad and trusting. “I know that too.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Not entirely happy with how I've portrayed Kal at the end there, but I'm tired and it'll do. That breakdown has been a long time coming, with the cracks showing more and more until everything fell apart in a spectacularly painful fashion. Kal hasn't been alright in a very, very long time.</p><p>Also, is it just me or did anyone else really like Samara Mindak? Like Kaliyo said: 'She's a brat, but she's got spirit.'</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. "You're who they warned me about."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A new face at ImpInt is being shown around, and runs into Cipher Nine.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Four years.</p><p>Four years, fifteen days.</p><p>Four years, fifteen days since she had left it all behind.</p><p>Sadri breathed deep, smoothing down the front of her uniform.</p><p>Her hair was scraped back into an immaculate bun, coiled tightly behind her head, and she didn’t even feel the ache anymore.</p><p>She took one last look at herself in the mirror of the ‘fresher she was in, thinking about how pale she looked.</p><p>Dromund Kaas didn’t lend itself to suntans.</p><p>She exited the ‘fresher in the lobby and headed for the speeder that waited unobtrusively at the pad.</p><p>Blank visored guards stood ready; rifles cradled in their arms.</p><p>The weather was pleasant by Kaasian standards, thin mist wreathing the spires of Kaas City and giving the whole view a phantasmal aura while weak sunlight illuminated gathering clouds.</p><p>The jungle stretched out far, splashes of bioluminescence giving the formless mass some colour.</p><p>Her boots rapped on the metal grating as she approached the speeder, her fellows already standing there.</p><p>A bored looking colonel returned the salute she gave him.</p><p>“Captain.” He greeted, “In you go. Bird flies in five.”</p><p>She nodded to him, grabbing the upper bar and using it to deftly swing herself into the transport.</p><p>Inside, the air was filtered and cold and it smelled like plastileather. The others in the transport were grim faced and stiff, watching her with impersonal eyes.</p><p>She buckled herself in, sinking into the hard, uncomfortable seats of the military shuttle.</p><p>She waited until the colonel boarded, setting into the seat by the door and buckling himself in.</p><p>No one spoke as they took off.</p><p>The ground fell away and the grey expanse of Kaas City mapped out below the shuttle, the mist making her feel like they were flying through the clouds.</p><p>The hum of the engines was the only accompaniment for the flight as they skimmed through the mist, the imposing bulk of the Citadel looming like a mountain. The twin structures of the Mandalorian enclave and the Imperial Intelligence HQ made for daunting bodyguards.</p><p>Their shuttle headed for the covered entrance to ImpInt HQ, antenna sticking up like stalagmites, and the landing pad was illuminated in crimson lights, indicating that the pad should be cleared of all but the highest security personnel.</p><p>She was nervous.</p><p>It was one thing to exist in the Imperial army, it was quite another to walk into the vipers den that was ImpInt. They were boogeyman to even the most law-abiding Imperial, the faceless presences behind every screen, watching you at the market or reading your holomail vent sessions to your friends.</p><p>She was as squeaky clean as she believed she could be, but it was still daunting.</p><p>It was like going on holiday and going through security, knowing full well you had nothing untoward on you and yet feeling like security were watching you anyway.</p><p>Except, of course, here they really were watching.</p><p>The shuttle came in low on the approach, and a uniformed figure stood to meet it, unmoved through the wind from the engines.</p><p>The shuttle touched down with the tiniest bump, and then they were there.</p><p>The air tasted flavourful after the artificial nothingness of the shuttle as she felt the humid heat settle on her skin and ozone and petrichor fill her nose.</p><p>The individual in front of them was a grim faced man of the age for grey hair, and his uniform has not a single crease in it.</p><p>“Minister.” The colonel greeted with a salute, and the rest of their group followed suit. The Minster, hawk eyed and grey from his hair to his skin, eyed them all.</p><p>“If you’re about to say that you’re ‘here for the tour’, colonel, I’ll advise you not to.” The Minister said at last, and the colonel smiled thinly at him.</p><p>“It’s accurate. These individuals have been selected to liaise with Intelligence on behalf of the Imperial military.”</p><p>The Minister, somehow, managed to look even more displeased.</p><p>“I am aware, colonel.” He said, disdain dripping from his words. “Their predecessors have… moved on.”</p><p>That could either mean they had retired, or they had been <em>retired.</em></p><p>Sadri suspected the latter.</p><p>Introductions were made and she brushed away the paranoia that came with having the Minister of Intelligence shaking your hand.</p><p>Grim, they headed for the doors.</p><p>This was it.</p><p>The moment she had thought might never come. The most important things she’d ever done in her career.</p><p>She calmed her nerves.</p><p>They were shown the Minders stations and she felt her skin crawl at the capsules and the neural arrays that the Minders were hooked up to. They looked like droids, lying there hooked up with wires and cables.</p><p>The Fixers were less unnerving, but they were loud. They talked and they were busy, and they coming and going on an indecipherable schedule.</p><p>The Minister didn’t let them get close to anything, and her belly itched.</p><p>Everything was pristine and ordered, cool blue lights blinking on workstations next to technical readouts and footage from security cams.</p><p>The main hub was surprisingly quiet. Watchers sat at their terminals and spoke into headsets, their eyes never once lifting from their screens. A dozen missions on the go at once, all being guided and handled with the kind of slick professionalism that made her shiver.</p><p>A field agent or two were visible, distinguished by their armour and visible weaponry. All were blank faced and professional, speaking in clipped tones with Watchers and Fixers.</p><p>The huge screen behind the main staging area was filled with information flashing by at a rate she could barely keep up with, even as she tried to make sense of it.</p><p>Watchers hooked up with headsets and neural uplinks stood around a galaxy map and moved their hands as if talking, even though their mouths didn’t move at all.</p><p>They came to a halt near a table with a holoprojector on it, a man sitting in one of their chairs doing paperwork.</p><p>He glanced up with a smile, and Sadri was struck by his blue skin.</p><p>The Minister’s mouth thinned.</p><p>“This is Cipher Nine, one of our top field agents.” He introduced, and Cipher Nine’s smile widened by a few white teeth.</p><p>He stood, feline and controlled.</p><p>He saluted crisply, his unform fitting him like a glove.</p><p>“A pleasure,” he murmured, his crimson eyes settling on each of them in turn. She pretended to wrinkle her nose when he looked at her, and he winked.</p><p>Cipher Nine was <em>charming</em>.</p><p>He was polite and well spoken and his voice was like velvet and chocolate. He smiled and joked and flattered and he did it so well that even her fellow officers seemed to be pleased to be in his presence.</p><p>A <em>Cipher</em>, though.</p><p>They were legends, and it wasn’t hero worship to think so. They were more than spies, more than ‘assets’. They were trained in everything from assassination to interrogation and seduction, and only a very select few made the demanding cut.</p><p>They had ice in their veins, she had heard. Could disappear you on the whisper of treason or something less dramatic, and smile to your family as they informed them of your tragic accidental demise.</p><p>Ghosts and phantasms, merciless and cold.</p><p>She wondered if he naturally looked like that, or if they had given him surgery to be more appealing. He certainly looked like something off a holomovie.</p><p>He had a spray of dark blue freckles over his nose and a lick of hair fell charmingly over his brow, coming loose from it’s neat, professional style.</p><p>He spoke with his leather gloved hands as he talked, and she saw the others following their movements.</p><p>Hook, line, and sinker.</p><p>Eventually the Minister, who was significantly less enjoyable company than the Cipher, moved them on.</p><p>“Will Cipher Nine be joining us later?” one man asked, the bars on his lapel showing that he was a captain like her. He seemed smitten already, pretending to be coolly curious.</p><p>“If his duties permit,” was the bland answer, and Sadri wondered if that didn’t mean that the meeting had been engineered from the start. After all, it would be extremely useful to have the army liaison met such a charming and welcoming member of Intelligence.</p><p>She had been warned about Intelligence. They were a different sort here, she had heard.</p><p>The rest of the tour, though no one would call it that, was as bland as the rest had been, interacting with no one and not getting too close to anything. If one were forced to plan a tour that gave the least amount of information possible, this was it.</p><p>Just enough detail to feel like something but having nothing of use to show for it at the end. It was understandable, but inconvenient. She and her fellows would be working with these people after all.</p><p>The tour ended after several equally bland presentations held in one of the secure conference rooms, and they were back in the bullpen.</p><p>Someone was talking about lunch and The Minister was handing them over to a Minder, so she took the opportunity to look around more.</p><p>She mentally catalogued the departments that they had seen already, spotting one corridor that they hadn’t gone down.</p><p>From the sign, it was to the firing range and medical facility.</p><p>“What’s down there?” She asked, gesturing. The Minister looked up, sharp and thin faced.</p><p>“Assessment, medical and the range.” He responded, clipped. “The agents are assessed and cleared for field operations there.”</p><p>There was a minute pause.</p><p>“Cipher Nine is currently undergoing his routine combat assessment before returning to the field, I believe.”</p><p>“May we observe?” She asked, keeping her voice steady as he stared at her. After what seemed like an age, he nodded.</p><p>“If you wish.”</p><p>It didn’t sound like he was pleased, and there must have been a reason it had not been originally included in their itinerary.</p><p>The corridor was bleak and shadowless, leading to several subsections with labels and lines on the floor showing where the routes.</p><p>Muffled sounds of gunfire came from the door marked for the shooting range, and she wasn’t too interested in that. There was only so much one could learn from a shooting range.</p><p>The medical facility was next, and they briefly visited it before moving through into the assessment area.</p><p>Gym equipment filled the large space arranged around a mat in the centre. Intelligence personnel were using the equipment and none of them spared a glance for the visitors, not even to see who they were.</p><p>Such determined disinterest was unnerving.</p><p>The Minister handed over to a young woman dressed in workout gear, her hair wet and pulled back from her face. She seemed to not mind being borrowed for an impromptu tour.</p><p>“What’s happening?” she asked her, and the woman smiled at her.</p><p>“That’s the Pit.” She chuckled, gesturing to the mats. “That’s what we call it, anyway. Sounds more dramatic, I think. Assessment time for field agents always means time in the Pit.”</p><p>Sadri frowned, her mind filing this information away.</p><p>“Why do you call it that?” she asked, and the young woman laughed softly.</p><p>“’Cause it looks like one. You get chuckled in there and we see how long you last.” She said with a mean sort of glee. “Weeds out the weak ones. There’s quite the betting pool, you know.”</p><p>She winked and Sadri noted the Minister’s mouth thinning, his eyes cool.</p><p>There were people on the mats, and she spotted blue skin.</p><p>Cipher Nine had his hands up in front of him in a boxers stance, balancing on the balls of his feet as he circled his opponent, a similarly sized human with a goatee.</p><p>Both were cautious, although she spotted that the Chiss was bruised and his skin shone with perspiration. He hair was damp and pushed back from his face, and the singlet he wore stuck to his skin. The human was tired too, but he didn’t look as worn as the Chiss.</p><p>They circled each other, and the human looked twitchy.</p><p>One of her fellows pointed to a counter on the wall.</p><p>“Eight minutes?” he asked, frowning. “That’s not much of a fight.”</p><p>The young woman laughed.</p><p>“That’s not minutes,” she corrected, amused. “That’s <em>opponents</em>.”</p><p>Just as she spoke, the human lashed out with his fist in a quick strike, and Sadri could just about see the mistake he made.</p><p>With a quick duck and juke, the Chiss lashed out with a vicious blow to the side, following it up with a grapple as his opponent reacted to the first blow. From the pained expression on the human's face, the Chiss hit like a speeder truck.</p><p>With a twist and a pivot, the human was flat on the mat with enough force to make her wince, a fist coming down from his alien opponent to knock him out cold before he realised what had happened.</p><p>The Chiss stood and rolled his shoulders. Several people rushed forwards to drag the unconscious human away.</p><p>Sadri swallowed.</p><p>That had been <em>brutal</em>.</p><p>The Chiss’ expression was grim and cold as he wiped blood from his mouth and examined his fingers. They were crooked and clearly dislocated, standing at an odd angle from his hand.</p><p>With a twitch of an eye, he snapped them back into place and Sadri noted at least one of her fellows wincing.</p><p>The fanboy from earlier was wide eyed, clearly not having expected such a suddenly brutal showing from the charming, genteel Cipher they had met earlier.</p><p>“Again.” The Chiss ordered, taking on a combat stance. Another human walked into the ring, her hands shaking slightly. The assessor standing over to the side marked something on her holopad, and the counter ticked up to nine.</p><p>The young woman smiled, and it was somehow both bland and sharp.</p><p>“All our agents are trained to be nothing but the best,” she said simply, “And it’s good practise for those who take part in the assessments. They learn to control their emotions.”</p><p>Sadri watched as the Chiss surveyed his frightened opponent.</p><p>Getting sent up against that monster seemed unfair and terrifying. She could understand their fear.</p><p>The Minister took over, leading them away with a look on his face that, had Sadri been any less skilled in reading people, she wouldn’t have seen. It was satisfaction, and she wondered how much of that had been preordained.</p><p>After a quiet, somewhat shaken lunch break in which no one said much, they were set up for a seminar or two.</p><p>As they were heading there, they passed Cipher Nine again, this time back in his uniform and with a split lip and black eye.</p><p>Somehow it suited him more than his slick, polished appearance from earlier, and she wasn’t sure what that meant.</p><p>“I saw you watching earlier,” he commented to them all, although his eyes were fixed on her. “Did I put on a good show?”</p><p>She nodded as she cleared her throat, taking in his smile.</p><p>“I would expect nothing less from a Cipher,” she said simply, and the nauseous feeling in her belly swelled when he chuckled softly. It felt like it was only them in the corridor, like no one else mattered.</p><p>“Good,” he replied, and the blooming bruise over his eye gave him a mean look that clashed beautifully with his smile. He was vicious and she felt like a mouse in his gaze. Was this the kind of animal Intelligence let loose at a whim? “I’d hate to disappoint.”</p><p>He kept staring at her, and she didn’t like it.</p><p>“The SIS don’t use Jov-Tul, do they?” he asked suddenly, and had she not been trained as well as she had she would have frozen on the spot. “They use Corellian Hrev to train their agents.”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she said instead, careful. “I’ve never thought about that.”</p><p>His grin widened.</p><p>“No? Something to think about, perhaps. I should like to see you in the ring, one day.” He murmured, and in that moment, she knew that he knew. She didn’t know how, but he <em>did</em>. Ice filled her belly and she fought to keep her expressions under control.</p><p>Suddenly, this felt suffocating. Instead of a chance, this now felt like the closing of a trap.</p><p>“Perhaps you will,” she said noncommittally, forcing her voice steady. Panic bloomed in her gut, and suddenly she felt like everyone was staring at her. “But not today.”</p><p>
  <em>They warned me that there would be people like you. I thought I might never meet them after so long, but here you are. You’re not a pretty little thing at all, are you? No simple spy or provocateur. It would be like comparing a gecko to a krayt dragon.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’re a monster.</em>
</p><p>Cipher Nine smiled at her, and all she could see was a maw opening to swallow her whole.</p><p>
  <em>You’re who they warned me about.</em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. "Come back."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Old friends are never a surprise.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nine lounged on the plastileather of the bar seat, tucked away in a small booth.</p><p><br/>
The bar had a feeling of curated, controlled dinge, and the clientele were the sort looking for a single dose of rough before heading back to their safe, high-rise apartments.</p><p><br/>
He watched them all, sipping a drink he had thoroughly checked for poison, scrolling through his holo as though he was merely waiting for a friend.</p><p><br/>
He was visibly unarmed but really, that meant nothing.</p><p><br/>
Knives on his person, two hold-out pistols out of sight and his own CQC skills meant that he felt prepared enough to handle what might come his way in this little bar.</p><p><br/>
He gave the young Twi'lek that was serving tables a grin as he saw him looking over, cataloguing how nicely his pale green skin flushed as he smiled and hurried away, busy.</p><p><br/>
Perhaps he could find some company after this, just to take the edge off?</p><p><br/>
This meeting was sure to end up unpleasant, after all.</p><p><br/>
His implants were passively picking up signals and filtering them, from the holocast on another patron’s personal pad to the stream of a huttball game on the screens behind the bar.</p><p><br/>
His fingers curled around his glass, and he relished the coolness against bare skin, leaving no prints as he set the glass down again. He usually preferred gloves, but there was something to be said for physical touch, even of it was slightly deadened by the surgery.</p><p><br/>
A shadow fell over his booth, and he grinned up at the man staring at him with a look that could have been carved from ice for all the warmth it had.</p><p><br/>
“Evening,” he greeted, having clocked him the moment the door had opened. “It's good to see you.”</p><p><br/>
The Minister for Intelligence sat opposite him, his eyes pale and expression dry.</p><p><br/>
“No need to lie to me, Pharé. Or are you going by a different identity now?”</p><p><br/>
Nine’s smile widened. He hadn’t been Pharé for very long, so it was curious why the Minister picked that particular fake persona.</p><p><br/>
“I’m in between names right now,” he murmured easily, amused. “I'll find another when I need one.”</p><p><br/>
He would pick one off the shelf like he was choosing a jacket, slip it on and try it for size.</p><p><br/>
The Minister watched him, and Nine watched him right back.</p><p><br/>
He'd always liked the man who had once been Keeper.</p><p><br/>
Wanted to put a bullet in him too, but in Nine's world, those two weren’t mutually exclusive.</p><p><br/>
“How's Kaas City been?” he asked, taking a drink from his glass. The Minister’s eyes followed the liquid as it moved.</p><p><br/>
“As if you don’t know.”</p><p><br/>
Nine set his glass down and shot him a smile, sharp and showing teeth.</p><p><br/>
“You know I'm a wanted man in the Empire,” he murmured, playing at innocence. “Do you really think I would set foot on Dromund Kaas again?”</p><p><br/>
“Without a second thought.” The Minister shot back, whip fast. “The Bureau is up in arms about this.”</p><p><br/>
Nine rested his fingers on the surface of the table, tilting his head.</p><p><br/>
From the way the Ministers mouth thinned, he did not appreciate the coquettishness.</p><p><br/>
“About what?” he asked, having fun. A shiver ran down his spine at the memory.</p><p><br/>
The Minister’s nose wrinkled.</p><p><br/>
“Sloppy work,” he decided. “And entirely too personal.”</p><p><br/>
“It <em>was</em> personal,” Nine reminded him, relishing the phantom blood on his hands and the echo of his rifle discharging. Beautiful. “Sloppy yes, but that says more about you than me. You didn’t catch me, after all.”</p><p><br/>
The Minister stared him down, and Nine gave him a vicious grin.</p><p><br/>
“Did you like what I did to them?” he asked, voice dropping to a purr. “I was thorough.”</p><p><br/>
“You're an animal.” The Minister assured him quickly, his expression tight. “Their work was done, the Restraints technology already out there. Murdering them was pointless.”</p><p><br/>
Nine shrugged.</p><p><br/>
“Not pointless,” he assured, smiling. “It made me feel better.”</p><p><br/>
The Minister didn’t seem to approve, but Nine didn’t know what guilt felt like any more, so he ignored it.</p><p><br/>
“You've been busy.” The man said, seemingly choosing the gloss over the murders.</p><p><br/>
Nine nodded, relaxing back into his chair.</p><p><br/>
“Of course. You know I can’t stand to be idle.”</p><p><br/>
“I remember. It was in your file when you transferred from the Ascendancy. I thought it was more padding.”</p><p><br/>
Nine’s fingers tightened imperceptibly on his glass, and he eased off before he cracked it. The Minister didn’t seem to notice.</p><p><br/>
He had read that file, of course. He wasn’t supposed to know, but when had that ever stopped him?</p><p><br/>
“Needed to be convinced to take me?” he asked lightly, and the Minister didn’t have the grace to look chagrined.</p><p><br/>
“Yes.”</p><p><br/>
“Worked out well for you,” he murmured, swirling the last dregs in his glass. “Until it didn’t.”</p><p><br/>
The Minister nodded.</p><p><br/>
“You were an exceptional asset,” he agreed, and Nine hated that it made his spine tingle and gave him the urge to sit up straighter. He'd always liked to please.<br/>
He smiled.</p><p><br/>
“You say that like I’m not still cleaning up your messes,” he pointed out.</p><p><br/>
The Minister's mouth thinned, but he looked tired. More so than usual. Nine studied him.</p><p><br/>
“You're a rogue agent. You can’t be trusted.” He informed him, and Nine almost believed he meant it. “But you could be.”</p><p><br/>
Nine almost laughed.</p><p><br/>
So, there it was.</p><p><br/>
“Sith Intelligence finally cleaning up their house?” he asked, the title sounding foul in his mouth. It was an oxymoron of the most bitter kind. “What's her name again?” He asked, pretending to think about it and knowing be wasn’t fooling the Minister. He wasn’t trying to. “Lord Beniko, right? She finally decided that she prefers me on her leash?”</p><p><br/>
He'd actually been tempted. Lord Beniko had impressed him on Yavin, even if she was Sith.</p><p><br/>
He had known going there would have consequences, and he had been right.</p><p><br/>
The Minister sighed.</p><p><br/>
“You can come back.” He murmured, and Nine wondered how he felt about playing messenger. “Full pardon, increased operational control and you may keep your squad. You would answer only to Lord Beniko.”</p><p><br/>
Hm, impressive. It would be a wonderful deal if Nine believed they had any intention of sticking to it.</p><p><br/>
He leaned forward, smile on his lips and regarding the Minister from under his lashes. The Minister had never been one to fall for this kind of ploy, but he didn’t need to. Nine was projecting an image here, one he wanted to cement into his former boss' head.</p><p><br/>
Nine was not, and would never be, under the thumb of a Sith.</p><p><br/>
“No.” He purred, like the manka cat that got the blue milk. It felt so good to say that word, and he relished it. It sent pleasant feelings over his skin and his belly fluttered.</p><p><br/>
The Minister sighed, but was not surprised.<br/>
Frankly, Nine would have been disappointed if he had been.</p><p><br/>
“It would be wise of you to reconsider.” He said eventually, and Nine shook his head, something ugly and bitter sitting on his tongue.</p><p><br/>
“I gave you everything.” He reminded the man he had trusted.</p><p><br/>
“You did. You should not have been surprised when I took it.”</p><p><br/>
A moment of silence, and the Minister looked... well, he looked like someone who hadn’t slept easy in a long time. Unless Nine was wrong, and he wasn’t often, there was a hint of guilt there.</p><p><br/>
Perhaps he was merely projecting what he wanted to see.</p><p><br/>
The Minister stood, as prim and proper as any politician, but with the kind of steel in his spine that gave him away as a man who could look you in the eyes as he put a bullet between them.</p><p><br/>
Nine recognised the look from his own reflection.</p><p><br/>
He regarded Nine, his greatest asset and failure, for a moment.</p><p><br/>
“I regret to hear that you will not be accepting our offer.” He began as he brushed an invisible speck of dust from his immaculate uniform.</p><p><br/>
Nine felt the air shift, and his skin itched.</p><p><br/>
So that was how they were playing this. How <em>novel</em>.</p><p><br/>
The waiter glanced at him as he set down some drinks at a table, and the older couple at bar that Nine had tagged as being armed were sitting ever so slightly off centre.</p><p><br/>
The bartender was stacking glasses at one end of the bar, refusing to move from it even as he ran out of things to wash.</p><p><br/>
Nine took another drink.</p><p><br/>
“Give Lord Beniko my regards.” he bid, smiling as he lounged.</p><p><br/>
The Minister nodded to him, as close to respect as a man like him would give.</p><p><br/>
“I will.” He paused as he made to walk away. “Don’t make too much of a mess, Cipher.”</p><p><br/>
Nine grinned at him, “You don’t give me orders any more, Keeper.”</p><p><br/>
A moment of pause before the Minister inclined his head in a rare gesture of respect to anyone not a Sith.</p><p><br/>
Nine watched him go before he drained the last of the liquid in his glass, watching the bar over the rim of it.</p><p><br/>
The cute young waiter’s hand twitched, and Nine smiled.</p>
<hr/><p>The Minister watched the feeds on his holopad as his speeder swept him towards the spaceport, his expression blandly interested.</p><p><br/>
The cameras in the little cantina had been simple to crack for his people, and he watched as the lone figure on his screen breathed heavily.</p><p><br/>
Cipher Nine was a monster.</p><p><br/>
Corpses littered the floor and blood covered the walls in splashes of sticky crimson, the occasional burst of grim colour showing where other species had met their ends.</p><p><br/>
The bar was silent save for the squish of the Chiss’ boots against the sodden tiles.</p><p><br/>
The Minister wasn’t surprised as he watched the Chiss head for the bar, his gait lazy and relaxed as he shook off the adrenaline.</p><p><br/>
He ambled over, gracefully picking his way through the bodies, and leaned over the bar, the surface peppered with blaster burns.</p><p><br/>
He snagged a bottle of something amber and the cloth the bartender had been using to clean the glasses, stepping over his leaking corpse as he did so.</p><p><br/>
He used the rag to clean his knife, careful and practised and poured himself a glass with a steady hand, taking demure sips as he worked.</p><p>There had always been something about him, the Minister thought, that made it hard to take your eyes off him.</p><p>Perhaps a long buried survival instinct, to keep your eyes on something that could tear you apart and not feel a thing.</p><p><br/>
A pitiful whimper and a twitch of movement caught the Ministers eye as the young twi'lek that had played the part of a waiter tried to crawl away.</p><p><br/>
The Chiss watched him for a few moments as he savoured his drink, letting him get a few feet at a time, before he levered himself off the bar that he was leaning on, and followed with easy steps.</p><p><br/>
Reaching down and dragging the terrified mercenary by his lekku so that his throat was bared, the Chiss looked up and into the camera. He was splashed with blood and there was a bruise blossoming on one cheekbone, but he was a terribly beautiful as ever.</p><p><br/>
The Minister recalled a dedicated, professional agent with a sense of humour and a skewed moral compass.</p><p><br/>
If he had been anyone else, he would have mourned what Cipher Nine had once been.</p><p>Monsters like Cipher Nine weren't born, they were <em>made</em>.</p><p><br/>
The Chiss grinned at the camera like he knew the Minister was watching, and with slow, deliberate brutality, drew his blade over the young man’s throat, never breaking eye contact with the watchers through the lens.</p><p><br/>
The twi'lek died choking as the Minister cut the feed with a sigh.</p><p><br/>
An expensive message to be sure, but one he had been ordered to send.</p><p><br/>
He had known full well that this wouldn’t be enough to put down a rabid creature like Cipher Nine, but Sith always thought they knew best. </p><p><br/>
He had done his part.</p><p><br/>
The rest was up to Lord Beniko.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Remember that scene in the church in Kingsman: Secret Service?</p><p>Yeah.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. "Are you jealous?"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Theron and Kal share a moment.</p><p>“Are you jealous?”</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theron felt like perhaps, just <em>maybe</em>, he once again hadn’t thought things through.</p><p>Lana would have told him that he was absolutely correct and that he had the self-preservation instinct of a rock, but Theron always thought that he might be due a <em>little</em> more credit than that.</p><p>He was beginning to suspect that he should listen to Lana more often.</p><p>Case in point.</p><p>
  <em>“He's dangerous, Theron. I mean it.”</em>
</p><p>And what had he done? Waved her off because of <em>course </em>Cipher Nine was dangerous, Theron wasn’t an <em>idiot.</em></p><p>Only... he hadn’t realised quite what he was getting himself into.</p><p>There was a difference between ‘dangerous' as in ‘agent working for the other side’ and ‘dangerous' as in ‘unstable, trained killer with serious sociopathic tendencies'.</p><p>There were several facts of the universe that Theron was undeniably aware of.</p><p>Hoth was cold.</p><p>Red was definitely his colour.</p><p>Hutta sucked.</p><p>And Cipher Nine was completely crazy.</p><p>Theron found him heading away from the command centre, still armoured and just got back from his mission. Theron couldn’t miss it when he'd heard he was back, all wicked smiles and mean-spirited laughter. He had been curious, and wanted to see him.</p><p>Kal, and Theron couldn’t stop thinking of him by that name even if it wasn’t his real one, had been about to head for his quarters, set away from most for good reason.</p><p>Theron watched his face light up when he'd spotted him, his mouth sliding into a wicked smile and his eyes turning teasing, high on whatever mayhem he'd been involved in.</p><p>Theron smelled unfamiliar cologne and blood on his still damp skin when he'd pulled the Chiss in for a kiss in a dark corner.</p><p>The kiss was hard and fiery, and Theron wondered how he'd gotten there, kissing an Imperial Cipher in the shadows behind some stacked crates marked with the Alliance insignia.</p><p>Kal kissed him with his strange mix of lazy sensuality and violence, the brush of teeth over his lip a surprise as the Chiss forced the kiss to stay slow and languid.</p><p>Kal had let him press him back against the wall, grinning into the kiss. Theron's hand settled on his waist, the other moving to wind in his hair so tightly it must have been painful.</p><p>It was strange really, that Kal letting him do this made it feel like Theron was in control. He knew better.</p><p>Kal was taller than he was, lithe and vulpine in his features. He was <em>gorgeous </em>in how his cracks showed the ugliness inside, but Theron still couldn’t get enough of him.</p><p>Theron, tasting caf and blood in the kiss, reluctantly pulled away to look at him, drinking him in.</p><p>He was a mess, his bodysuit half undone and his hair a rumpled study in disarray, bites and scratches visible on his blue skin.</p><p>Some were still bleeding sluggishly, and there were bruises on his throat.</p><p>He'd pressed closer to Theron, eyes half lidded and drunk on... whatever he was feeling.</p><p>“Are you jealous?” he'd purred, and Theron couldn’t help but find him <em>beautiful.</em></p><p>Theron wasn’t, not really.</p><p>It was for a mission, and on missions, pretty much anything went. He knew it, he'd <em>done </em>it.</p><p>Kal was all bright eyes and wickedness, and Theron knew all too well how enticing he could be. It would be a shame not to use that, after all.</p><p>So, he shoved away thoughts of what Kal might have been up to and with who, trying to beat away images of faceless figures in dark back rooms.</p><p>Violence, sex and lies were Kal's game, and Theron would be dammed if he wasn't drawn in just a bit.</p><p>The two of them couldn’t be more different on the surface, both agents for opposing sides, far removed from the others modus operandi.</p><p>Theron preferred tech and low impact intervention, perhaps with a splash of flattery to get what he wanted. He was a bit of a daredevil who was adept as winging it when things inevitably veered off course.</p><p>Kal was his opposite. Up close and personal or behind a scope, he pulled strings and used his dangerously potent charisma to win hearts and break them in equal measure. He used people and discarded them, cold and efficient. He had contingencies for contingencies, and his training regimen was <em>brutal.</em></p><p>And he was crazy.</p><p>That was another point that separated them. Theron was aware that he was a bit weird. Most agents were.</p><p>Still, his weird didn’t even <em>remotely</em> touch of the level of broken that Cipher Nine sometimes let out to play.</p><p>The Chiss’ hand, splayed over Theron's chest in a puddle of warmth, tensed and he curled his fingers until his nails pressed into Theron's skin.</p><p>He wanted Theron to pay attention to him, not daydream.</p><p>Fair enough.</p><p>“Who was it?” he asked, tipping his head back as the Chiss nipped at the skin of his throat. He felt him grin against the skin there.</p><p>“I thought you weren’t jealous?” he purred, and his voice made Theron shiver.</p><p>He was addictive for all the worst reasons, and Theron was reminded about <em>why</em> he was so dangerous.</p><p>It wasn’t just the formidable combat skills that made him one to keep an eye on, but the way he played people.</p><p>Cipher Nine was an <em>actor</em>, layers upon layers of personality and masks coming together to form one mostly functional sociopath.</p><p>He switched between personas so quickly it gave Theron whiplash.</p><p>“I’m <em>not</em>,” he muttered, digging his nails into the Chiss' hair hard enough that it must have hurt.</p><p>Kal chuckled against his skin, lavishing attention on his throat as Theron held him close.</p><p>Theron’s brain was slowly turning to mush, and everything was getting very hazy and hot.</p><p>Every point of skin contact between them felt like it was burning, and the feeling of being under his attention was heady.</p><p>“Freighter captain and her first mate,” Kal breathed as he shifted his hips in a way that made Theron groan. “Needed a bioscan to get into their cargo. She wanted him to be rough with me.”</p><p>Fuck, that shouldn’t make him as turned on as it did.</p><p>Kal seemed to know what it was doing to him because suddenly he was whispering in Theron’s ear, filthy words recounting exactly what he had been up to that left him in such a state.</p><p>There was blood smeared over his collarbone as Theron’s fingers caught the zipper of his bodysuit, the crimson looking very dark against his blue skin.</p><p>“Mmm, it's not mine.” Was the only response to his curious touches, and Theron wasn’t sure if he should be worried about that or not.</p><p>Well, that wasn’t accurate.</p><p>He <em>should</em> have been worried.</p><p>It should have concerned him that the man in his arms killed without remorse, revelled in control and blood.</p><p>It bothered him that it <em>didn’t</em> bother him.</p><p>Theron was hemming him in, pressing him up against the wall and keeping him there. Kal was letting him, and someone else might have felt like they were pulling the strings.</p><p>Theron knew better.</p><p>The moments when Kal let him do things like this, let him <em>take</em>, were the moments where Theron was the least in control.</p><p>Kal was playing him, letting him do what he liked and keeping him hooked. Little tastes of control, convincing enough to keep him chasing them, dangled in front of him like bait to a fish.</p><p>Theron knew exactly what he was doing, and it made it all the worse when he found that he couldn’t stop himself from playing along.</p><p>Kal had to know that Theron wasn’t stupid, but Theron was playing to his tune anyway, so what did it matter?</p><p>He gasped as Kal arched his back, pressing his body, separated only by the thin synthleather of his bodysuit. Theron could feel the planes of his body through it, feel how warm he was. Breathily little moans reached his ears and make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and Theron was being driven wild by the man under his hands.</p><p>He kissed Theron again and a hand carded through his hair, tightening his grip.</p><p>The kiss was biting now; hard, greedy, and hungry.</p><p>Suddenly, Theron wasn’t in even in a false sense of control anymore and was holding on for dear life as he was <em>devoured. </em>He wasn’t sure when Kal had turned the tables on him.</p><p>He was dizzy, falling and without a chute to catch him. It was like he was drugged or delirious, everything hazy and ephemeral except <em>him.</em></p><p>He kissed back, trying to match the intensity that was being shown to him.</p><p>Hands, teeth and heat made his head swim, and he barely recalled that they were technically in public.</p><p>Kal broke the kiss, staying close enough for Theron to be able to count the spray of freckles that dotted his nose and cheeks, and to see how his eyelashes feathered over his eyes. He was smiling like he knew exactly how wicked he was, and Theron felt naked under that gaze.</p><p>“Let’s go to your quarters,” he murmured, punctuating his words with a subtle shift that had Theron’s head swimming. He weighed walking through the base with what they could do when they got to his room and found himself at an impasse. “And continue our debrief there.”</p><p>“If you think I’m walking out in public like this…” he muttered, feeling his face heat up. Kal’s own skin was flushed an enticing purple.</p><p>The Chiss gave a low chuckle, and the sound was sinful.</p><p>He reached down and his hands brushed where Theron was feeling rather constrained, and he felt himself twitch and lean into it with a choked groan. Kal looked smug, even though Theron could feel he was in the same predicament. Kal had a stealth generator too and if Theron was him, would absolutely use it to get out of situations like this.</p><p>“Mm,” the Chiss purred, and the sound was too close to a moan for Theron’s comfort. “Want me to do something about that?”</p><p><em>There</em> it was.</p><p>Kal always phrased these things as questions, but they were the unfair kind. He only ever asked when he already knew the answer, lulling Theron into thinking that he had control of the situation.</p><p>It was so, <em>so </em>hard to think right now, with a solid, warm body pressed against his, little brushes of his smile against Theron’s ear and a hand now firmly and languidly stripping him of all reason.</p><p>He felt himself choke back a sob of sensation, needing it so badly it was like being cut open.</p><p>“You know I do,” he snapped when the hand became more insistent, and he let his head fall against Kal’s shoulder. The Chiss hummed, amused. “But we’re in <em>public</em>.”</p><p>“So concerned with what people will think,” the other agent cooed, “And not enough with what I might do to you if we get to your quarters.”</p><p>Oh, Theron knew all too well what Kal could do to him. <em>Would</em> do to him. Kal seemed to be in the mood to be mean, so Theron was sure that he was going to need to sleep it off or be limping later.</p><p>He shouldn’t want it, not from a man so broken he was the poster boy for fucked up.</p><p>But Kal was an addiction he was having a hard time quitting, and really, Theron could handle himself. Kal was all sorts of fun, and didn’t Theron deserve a little fun now and then?</p><p>Besides, there was something to be said for keeping an eye on such a dangerous and unpredictable asset.</p><p>A very close eye.</p><p>Reading it in his face, Kal’s expression turned unfathomably wicked and he dropped to his knees, legs apart and gazing up at Theron through his eyelashes. His bodysuit was skin-tight and in his new position, strained in all the right places. It was half undone thanks to Theron himself, exposing bites and bruises over his collarbones. He looked like he’d just rolled out of a bed that still had someone in it, all messed hair, flushed skin and lustful grin. He was sex and sin and bad decisions in one gorgeous, synthleather wrapped package.</p><p>He reached up and tugged at Theron’s belt, and the human had to bite back a curse at the image in front of him.</p><p>He was being practical.</p><p>He couldn’t very well walk the halls of the base as he currently was, and Kal would rid him of the problem in short order.</p><p>He wound a hand in messy dark hair, and let his head fall back to hit the wall with a ‘thunk’, praying no one decided to come to this part of the base and look behind this stack of crates.</p><p>Fuck, he was going off the deep end.</p><p>He was dancing to Kal’s tune and he <em>liked</em> it.</p><p>Kal gave a delighted little grin, crimson eyes dark and expression sinful, and moved to undo Theron’s belt with nimble fingers.</p><p>So, there were several facts of the universe that Theron was undeniably aware of.</p><p>Hoth was cold.</p><p>Red was definitely his colour.</p><p>Hutta sucked.</p><p>Cipher Nine was completely crazy.</p><p>And Theron was in <em>serious</em> trouble.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. "Do you want that?"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“They’re scared of you here, aren’t they? You come, you go... You’re the freaking secret police.”</p><p>Republic captives think the worst thing that could walk through the door is a Sith.</p><p>They are wrong.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“It all depends really,” the guard said with a shrug, “On what walks through that door.”</p><p>Arvel Helvelyon scowled.</p><p>“I am aide to a Moff.” He stressed, eyes narrow. “A <em>Moff</em>. Show some respect.”</p><p>The guard straightened her posture, but otherwise didn’t react. The aide huffed, watching the nervous prisoner with a frown.</p><p>“I don’t see why we’re just waiting around.” He muttered, sullen. He crossed his arms over his chest.</p><p>The complex they were in was a recycled manufacturing plant, the lines all long silent and every available space taken up with machinery and makeshift quarters. Their detention block was a repurposed warehouse section, separate loading docks perfect for slapping together a few energy barriers and calling them cells.</p><p>The foreman’s office was an interrogation room now, and they were looking through the grubby plexiglass at their captive.</p><p>The Republic commando wasn’t green by the look of him, but he was clearly frightened even as he controlled his breathing.</p><p>The guard tilted her head, her helmet making the action look odd.</p><p>“We got an interested third party.” She grunted, her accent placing her somewhere from the Imperial colonies in the Outer Rim. “So, how long he’ll take to break depends on what walks through that door.”</p><p>“You think a Sith has taken an interest?” he asked, curious. He saw Sith on a fairly regular basis, but had never interacted with any of them as none of them had deemed him important enough. They were terrifying and awe inspiring, like being in the same room as a hungry carnivore that liked to play with its food. Maybe now he could make an impression without interference?</p><p>The guard shrugged again. “I dunno,” she admitted, “Could be. Could be some big shot wants a crack at some intel, or maybe a Sith just wants something to play with.” She said dispassionately, adjusting her grip on her rifle. “Or a hundred others. Due soon though, next ten minutes.”</p><p>Arvel's mind churned. Hopefully the Sith would leave them something to extract information from.</p><p>The sound of far distant shelling and the occasional muffled, reverberating ‘whump' of something impacting the energy shields kept them company as they waited, Arvel becoming increasingly antsy as he stood.</p><p>He cursed whatever deity had let him get assigned to this mud ball of a planet.</p><p>Suddenly, the guard raised her hand to her helmet and listened, clearly receiving something over her holo. Professional, she nodded as she replied.</p><p>“News?” he asked hopefully, wanting this to be over with.</p><p>The guard jerked her head, shifting her gun to a more comfortable resting position.</p><p>“Yeah,” she grunted. “Our guest is on his way. Should be a minute or two.”</p><p>Sure enough, footfalls signalled the arrival or their ‘interested third party’.</p><p>The man that entered was not what Arvel had expected.</p><p>He was Chiss, for one, his blue skin contrasting with red eyes, and dark hair pushed back from his face in a neat style. He wore armour with no official markings, and was as close fitting as practicality would allow. Which, Arvel realised with awkward interest, was <em>very.</em></p><p>He was smiling as he entered, watchful and with enough swagger in his step to make Arvel raise his eyebrows. A rifle was strapped to his back and a myriad of unidentifiable items were hung on his belt. He had a blaster pistol in a holder at his hip, and a what looked to be a machete in a sheath at the small of his back. If it were not for the small dents and smears of mud on his armor, he would have looked like he stepped out of a holo-magazine or recruitment poster, all lovely smile and perfect hair even as he ignored the sounds of war.</p><p>A Rattataki woman trailed behind him, dressed in muddy leathers and toting a blaster rifle like it was a baby. She smirked as she said something to the Chiss, her gait rolling and confident. His grin widened and he gave a reply that earned him a guffaw.</p><p>Arvel leaned in to the guard. “Who is that?” he asked, not moving his eyes from their guest.</p><p>The guard gave a shrug. “Dunno. You should be able to handle it, though.”</p><p>He glanced at her, startled. “Why me?” he asked, somewhat intimidated by the two figures heading their way.</p><p>The guard shrugged again. “You’re aide to a Moff,” she grunted. “Right?”</p><p>Flustered, he sneered at her and stepped smoothly forward to greet their guests.</p><p>“Welcome,” he said with a winning smile. “I would say ‘make yourselves at home', but...” he trailed off, hoping his joke had eased him into the conversation. The Chiss was smiling, but Arvel wasn’t reassured in the slightest. There was something wrong with that smile, even though it was pleasant on his lovely face. Freckles dusted his nose and cheeks, and that smile left dimples in his cheeks.</p><p>“I am-"</p><p>“Arvel Helvelyon? A pleasure.” The man greeted, smile fixed firmly on his lips. Arvel got the impression it was aimed <em>at</em> him and not <em>to</em> him. “Cipher Nine, Imperial Intelligence.”</p><p>That <em>voice</em>.</p><p>That accented, Kaasian drawl had a faint burr that gave it a dangerous, filthy quality, and Arvel almost forgot that their visitor was an <em>alien.</em></p><p>Imperial Intelligence.</p><p><em>Oh</em>.</p><p>He kept his own smile plastered on his face, but he had the feeling it wasn’t fooling anyone.</p><p>“I wasn’t aware Intelligence had any interest in this planet.”</p><p>The Chiss waved a gloved hand. “Oh, we have a lot of interests.” He said simply. “Some more pressing than others, as I’m sure you understand.”</p><p>Arvel nodded, his smile brittle.</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>The Chiss cast an eye around the place, and Arvel would have bought the lazy charade if he didn’t know he was a Cipher.</p><p>Intelligence was never <em>lazy</em>.</p><p>“You have a prisoner,” the agent began, his crimson eyes, lacking definition of a pupil or iris, boring into Arvel’s own. “A Republic officer. I need to speak with him.”</p><p>“May I ask why?” Arvel broached, cautious.</p><p>Cipher Nine’s smile widened.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Arvel shifted, a habit he was trying to rid himself of.</p><p>“Your clearance-“</p><p>The Cipher took a step forward, still smiling. His eyes were as cold as Hoth.</p><p>“Is higher than yours.” He murmured, and somehow Arvel felt that the quieter his voice got the more he wanted to hide from it. “You misunderstand; I will be speaking to the prisoner, or I will consider you a threat to my mission. Do you want that?”</p><p>The question was a dangerous one, and Arvel felt a spike of dread prickle down his spine as he realised what that meant. He shook his head.</p><p>The Rattataki by his side gave a grin, silver eyes amused.</p><p>“He might even leave him in one piece for you,” she drawled. “If you’re good.”</p><p>Arvel swallowed.</p><p>“Right this way,” he allowed, feeling exceedingly small. He hated the feeling. “We’ve had the foreman’s office converted into a holding cell.”</p><p>They said nothing, following behind him. Their weaponry was intimidating in it’s bulk and variety, and Arvel was reeling from his first real meeting with the Intelligence arm of the Empire. After all, he was a good citizen, a model one. The closest he had come to the workings of ImpInt was the occasional Fixer that dropped by on assignment as part of an officer’s retinue.</p><p>They didn’t give him the feeling that this Chiss did. He almost felt like he was standing in front of a Sith.</p><p>The small viewing room was barely more than a smaller office, no doubt once occupied by the foreman’s receptionist. Now, holomaps and papers were strewn around, and a privacy screen had been sealed over the window. They could see in, but anyone in there couldn’t see more than their own reflection.</p><p>The guard that had sassed him earlier was there, her face stony and form on guard. She cradled her rifle, loose and easy.</p><p>The Chiss inspected the prisoner through the glass, his expression thoughtful. The Rattataki tilted her head as she leaned against a wall.  “Forty minutes,” she drawled, and Cipher Nine chuckled, not taking his eyes off the man bound to the chair.</p><p>“You think so little of me.” He murmured, “Ten.”</p><p>She snorted.</p><p>“Ten? I’ll bite. You pay me a credit for every minute over ten.”</p><p>The Chiss laughed, his eyes crinkling.</p><p>Arvel felt out of place but resolved not to leave.</p><p>He wasn’t going to be kicked out.</p><p>Cipher Nine glanced to him.</p><p>“Has anyone spoken to him?” he asked, gesturing.</p><p>“No more than the odd order when they were moving him there,” he admitted, “We didn’t want to step on any Sith toes.”</p><p>Cipher Nine nodded, a small smile playing about his mouth.</p><p>“Wise,” he muttered, “Do you have any equipment?”</p><p>Arvel was drawing a blank.</p><p>“Equipment?” he repeated dumbly, “Like-“</p><p>The Rattataki smirked, and he felt like a mouse under a nexu’s stare.</p><p>“Torture-probes, med-droids, acid, blades, a hammer… The usual stuff.” She prompted, and he got the feeling she was playing with him. Not about the items, she seemed disturbingly sure of those, but she had to know he didn’t have access to that kind of thing.</p><p>“No,” he managed, trying to sound composed. From how her grin widened, he didn’t think he did a good job. “We don’t carry that sort of… <em>equipment</em> as standard. Except the med droid.”</p><p>Cipher Nine gave an elegant shrug.</p><p>“Not a problem.” He assured. “Improved interrogations are my speciality, among other things.”</p><p>The smile was back and it made Arvel’s skin writhe.</p><p>“Kaliyo?” The Chiss called as he headed for the door. “Stay here and keep our host company.”</p><p>The Rattataki pouted but did as she was told. She shot Arvel a smirk that, one anyone else, might have been mischievous. On her, it just looked cruel.</p><p>Arvel tore his gaze from her and fixed it on the prisoner, who was looking drawn and grim in the cell.</p><p>Republic filth.</p><p>The door opened and Arvel saw the prisoner’s head jerk up, eyes wide and searching for what was coming through that door.</p><p>For just a second, Arvel felt a twinge of pity for the Republic dog.</p><p>After all, he thought as he watched the prisoner relax minutely in his chair when he saw that his visitor wasn’t Sith, he had no idea what waited for him.</p>
<hr/><p>In the end, it took sixteen minutes.</p><p>Cipher Nine exited the improvised interrogation room, wiping a small fleck of blood from where it had caught the side of his mouth.</p><p>He looked like a cat, lazy and satisfied having drank his fill of information.</p><p>Arvel felt sick.</p><p>He had been braced for blades and blood and screaming.</p><p>What he got was so much <em>worse</em>.</p><p>The agent has barely needed the machete that he had withdrawn from the sheath at the small of his back, letting the gleaming blade catch the light. He tore down the Republic soldiers every defence, worming his way into the terrified man’s mind and shredding anything that might have posed as resistance. He was power and pain, efficiency and control, and Arvel had never wanted to be out of the presence of someone so much before.</p><p>The Chiss was sensual in his application of pain, using the anticipation of it just as effectively as the bite of his blade or the sting of the adrenal he pushed against the petrified soldier’s wrist.</p><p>The Republic solder had muttered a pathetic sounding ‘please’ while the Chiss had crooned in his ear, the tip of his blade resting gently against the thin, fragile skin under his eye.</p><p>The soldier had told Cipher Nine everything that he wanted to know while the Chiss smiled at him, the small holorecorder on his armour blinking red as it recorded.</p><p>The agent had left him sobbing in his bonds, terrified and needy and broken.</p><p>He smiled as he re-entered, nodding to the Rattataki.</p><p>“Looks like I owe you six credits,” he muttered, amused.</p><p>The sobbing could still be heard in the background.</p><p>She snorted, levering herself off the wall.</p><p>“You <em>knew</em> you wouldn’t take ten.” She accused. “You’re buttering me up.”</p><p>The agent shrugged.</p><p>“Sure. Is it working?”</p><p>She tossed her head, but her eyes were amused.</p><p>Cipher Nine sauntered towards Arvel, a vorn tiger amongst the pigeons.</p><p>“Much obliged,” he purred, his eyes bright. “He’s all yours. Until next time, Arvel Helvelyon.”</p><p>Arvel watched them go, not trusting his roiling stomach to let him move. His skin itched and his belly heaved, his eyes aching from where he had stared into the harsh lights for too long.</p><p>“Well?” he snapped at the guard, who remained unmoved. “Find the med-droid and get it to clear up the mess and fix the prisoner.”</p><p>She did so silently, and he was left with the feeling of fear curling in his gut and the sounds of sobbing reaching his ears.</p><p>He felt his hands shake and wondered why he had assumed Sith were the worst thing one could see walk through a door.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I always thought it strange that more people aren't completely terrified of ImpInt. I get why the Republic rank and file might not think about it, but other Imperials? They should know exactly how precarious their position is, if they're talking to a Cipher.</p><p>Still, the Republic think that being captured by a Sith is the worst thing that can happen to you (and they're usually right), but some forget that the Empire has a lot more than Sith that go bump in the night.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. “Can I at least tell my side of the story?”</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Lana finds out who Theron is sleeping with.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theron is sipping some caf and perusing a datapad when Lana looks at him.</p><p>It’s <em>Lana</em>, so a look is never just a look.</p><p>A long-honed fight or flight response is activated in him when she pins him with that stare, and he takes a forcibly nonchalant sip of his caf.</p><p>“Theron.”</p><p>He glances up, feigning surprise and cheer.</p><p>“Lana.” he greets with a smile, pretending he doesn’t know she’s about to ruin his morning with whatever crisis is making her mouth pinched and her eyes narrow.</p><p>She stares at him for a few long seconds before her mouth thins even more.</p><p>“We have to talk about this.” She says, tone brooking no nonsense.</p><p>Theron is immediately thrown by how much that sounds like ‘We need to talk’, which is whole ‘nother kind of terrifying.</p><p>Of course, he doesn’t know what ‘this’ is, which puts him at quite the disadvantage.</p><p>He takes another sip of caf.</p><p>“About what?” he asks, discreetly casting an eye about the command centre. It’s midday and everyone is working diligently. The only member of their inner circle is a flustered looking Arcann, who seems to be heading for the Force Enclave with a bunch of daisies in his mechanical hand.</p><p>Weird.</p><p>Lana sighs, and it’s the angry kind of sigh that sounds like an angry cat.</p><p>“<em>This</em>.” She snaps, gesturing to his neck with a sharp jab of her finger.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Kriff.</p><p>His hand shoots to his neck reflexively, and he realises that his collar has slipped. He should have been more careful, or at least worn something with a higher collar. He couldn’t be bothered to go all the way back to his rooms, and he was paying for it now.</p><p>He sighs.</p><p>Busted.</p><p>“Can I at least tell my side of the story?” he asks with a charming grin, but she doesn’t smile.</p><p><em>“Theron.”</em> She snaps, in no mood for jokes.</p><p>“So? I’m not a <em>hermit</em>,” he reminds her grumpily, savouring the warmth from his mug. “I’m allowed to have some fun now and then.”</p><p>She narrows her eyes, the yellow unnervingly focused on him.</p><p>Theron has had many years of working with Lana under his belt by now and weathers the gaze with nonchalance.</p><p>“Don’t assume I’m stupid, Theron.” She says firmly, “I know exactly who you’ve been sneaking off with.”</p><p>Theron’s a little miffed that she thinks he’s been putting that much effort in.</p><p>“I’m not sneaking,” he corrects, “That would imply I’m ashamed. I’m not, It’s just not anyone else’s <em>business</em>.”</p><p>Lana sighs again, but this one is softer. More exasperated, but not quite the kind that she nails the Commander with when he’s done something stupid.</p><p>“It’s not about you having fun,” she says eventually, “It’s who you’re having fun <em>with</em>.”</p><p>He bristles.</p><p>“And you think I don’t know.” he completes, less of a question and more of a statement.</p><p>She eyes him.</p><p>“I think you know what he wants you to know.” She says carefully, “And I’m sure you think that you’re being careful enough.”</p><p>Theron frowns.</p><p>Something in her tone makes her sound more concerned than annoyed. She’s worried about him.</p><p>“Lana, that’s very sweet of you-“</p><p>She holds up a gloved hand.</p><p>“No, it isn’t.” she interrupts. “Theron, I don’t think you really, <em>truly</em>, grasp what you’ve let into your bed.”</p><p>She’s serious.</p><p>Theron doesn’t agree with her, he’s got a rather good idea what kind of person Nine is, but he indulges her.</p><p>He looks at her for a few moments, and she’s looking entirely too earnest for his taste.</p><p>“Fine.” He mutters, “What exactly do you think I should know?”</p><p>She gestures for him to follow and he does, surprised.</p><p>She leads him to her office, and for a second he thinks she’s going to make him sit in front of her desk like a naughty schoolboy.</p><p>She doesn’t, thank the stars, and instead directs him to one of the chairs in the corner that crowd around a low caf table.</p><p>She sits, poised as ever, and Theron makes sure to slouch just a little more than necessary to counter her Imperial stiffness.</p><p>They’re a funny lot. Nine does the same thing.</p><p>She looks at him beadily.</p><p>“Cipher Nine was the best agent Imperial Intelligence ever produced.” She says at last. “And I don’t say that lightly. Every aptitude test, every shooting range exam, every academic and field assessment was passed with flying colours. I’ve read the original reports. Every instructor he had sang his praises, and you can imagine how rare that is.”</p><p>Theron snorts, agreeing.</p><p>Imperials hate praising anyone, and Imperial Intelligence were even more prone to dour box ticking than the rest.</p><p>“He was tagged as Cipher material within his first year,” she admits, “Providing he continued to excel and pass his psychiatric evaluation.”</p><p>Theron winces.</p><p>“That must have been hard to fake,” he mutters because yes, he knows Kal isn’t <em>normal</em>.</p><p>Lana’s mouth thins.</p><p>“Actually, he passed that with flying colours too.” She corrects, “At the time of his graduation, he was flagged as having sociopathic tendencies, and the signs of a minor obsessive-compulsive disorder. That was seen, at the time, to be the ideal, provided those traits could be made useful.”</p><p>Theron feels his belly tighten. He knows ImpInt was fucked, but this was… cold.</p><p>Clinical.</p><p>He imagines Kal, younger than he is now, and his file being poured over my grim faced, uniformed agents as they pulled his strings to make him ‘perfect’.</p><p>Lana watches him.</p><p>“It worked,” she says, staying away from her opinions of the practice. Wise. Theron suspects they would not agree. “He was tested and monitored and several years later, was made Cipher.”</p><p>She sighs, and her eyes are tired.</p><p>“Glossing over some of the more sensitive and irrelevant details,” she mutters, “He was responsible for the fall of a Dark Council member.”</p><p>Theron blinked.</p><p>He hadn’t known that.</p><p>As if reading his mind, Lana shook her head.</p><p>“That is classified,” she says firmly, “But frankly, I’m rather past caring.”</p><p>She brushes a strand of blonde hair from her eyes.</p><p>“To make a long story short, this was not exactly <em>expected</em>. The solution, at the time, was to ensure loyalty.”</p><p>The way she says it is… heavy. Final.</p><p>Theron feels his skin prickle as she sighs.</p><p>“The Castellan Restraints were a project designed to ensure complete obedience.”</p><p>She pauses for a second, looking at him.</p><p>“Brainwashing, to use layman’s terms. When a keyword was spoken, the subject would enact all orders given by the holder of the keyword. Cipher Nine was the perfect subject.”</p><p>Theron was trying extremely hard to keep his breathing steady.</p><p>“Unaware of this, he was sent undercover with the SIS.” She says, and he nods.</p><p>“I remember,” he assures her, “That shitshow with Ardun Kothe. The cleanup was brutal.”</p><p>Her mouth thins.</p><p>“You won’t know <em>this</em>. There was a leak. Ardun Kothe and his second in command learned the keyword.”</p><p>Theron swallowed hard and it felt like there was a golf ball in his throat.</p><p>“They used it.” She says, clinical and detached. “Often. Naturally, Cipher Nine attempted to resist.”</p><p>She glanced away.</p><p>“We have his mission reports and what we could piece together, but we don’t know what really happened to him for those months.” She admitted quietly, and Theron was floored that she was even admitting this. “But when he came back, he was different. The reports describe it as the expected post undercover stresses, but it wasn’t until he went rogue did anyone think to dig a little deeper.”</p><p>Theron forced his body slack again, feeling the tension in his shoulders lance pain through his muscles.</p><p>“He cracked, didn’t he?” he asks quietly, and she nods.</p><p>“The overuse of the Restraints shattered his psyche, as far as we can tell. Theron, he’s dangerously unstable.”</p><p>She’s leaning forward now, her expression intense. She’s really worried for him, and Theron can finally understand why.</p><p>“That psych eval? Imagine it again, but tenfold and with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.” She emphasizes, “He’s massacred surrendered enemy combatants, killed civilians, committed acts of terror- Theron, you need to be <em>careful</em>.”</p><p>She stops herself, fussily brushes non-existent lint of her knees, and sighs.</p><p>“I’m not saying you should stop,” she mutters, “You’re an adult, and I’m not your mother.”</p><p>Theron manages a tiny smile, and she returns it.</p><p>“But you needed to understand why I’m telling you this.”</p><p>He lets out a breath that’s shakier than he would like.</p><p>“I do understand,” he says, and it’s even true. He <em>does</em>. Lana, for all her faults, cares. She cares about a lot of things, and he’s one of them. Operational security is also fairly high on the list.</p><p>Lana is Sith. Imperial. The former head of Sith Intelligence.</p><p>The fact that she’s telling him that the man who was once Cipher Nine is tantamount to a <em>monster</em> is so telling that it makes him lose his breath just a little bit.</p><p>He sighs.</p><p>“I’m going to be honest,” he murmurs, “And say that I kind of knew that already.”</p><p>She frowns at him, the crease making her expression pinched.</p><p>“Not about the classified stuff,” he quickly assures. Not about the fucking <em>brainwashing</em>, he thinks to himself, a little hysterical. And the literal torture that Kal had been under for <em>months</em>. “But about him. I know he’s fucked up. Is he <em>ever</em>.”</p><p>He manages a small laugh that she doesn’t return as he drags a hand over his face.</p><p>“But… I’m- shit.” He curses, trying to find the words. He meets her yellow gaze. “Anything I say here will make me sound like an idiot.”</p><p>Her mouth twitches slightly.</p><p>“Too late for that,” she assures him, dry. “Say it anyway.”</p><p>“I want to help him.”</p><p>She sighs.</p><p>“You were right. I do think you’re an idiot.” She mutters, “Theron, it’s not your responsibility.”</p><p>He shrugs.</p><p>“I know. It sounds like I’m some naïve, lovelorn fool, like I think I can fix him. I can’t fix him. I don’t know if anyone can, fully.” He says it carefully, trying to get his point across. “I do know him, though. He’s… well, he’s a bastard.”</p><p>He grins, and Lana raises an eyebrow.</p><p>“He’s manipulative, selfish, sometimes cruel. He’s so incredibly messed up I can’t even describe it. He’s so fractured inside, so frightened and hurt and… And broken.”</p><p>He shrugs again, helpless.</p><p>“But sometimes something else shines through. A little bit of a person, and I like that person. I want to see more of him.” He smiles, sad. “It’s working. Did you know he fell asleep with me for the first time, yesterday?”</p><p>Lana, looking a little surprised now, shakes her head.</p><p>Theron nods.</p><p>“Yeah. All this time and he never fell asleep near me. Always ran off with a one liner or an empty promise. Not yesterday. He was… serious. Quiet.” He eyes her. “I won’t spill details of our private life, but I need you to know that he trusts me. I think. It’s hard to tell, but… yeah.”</p><p>She sighs, her posture slumping the tiniest bit.</p><p>“Just… be careful, please. Not just for your own sake, either.” She warns, “If he uses you to get at the Alliance…”</p><p>Theron shakes his head.</p><p>“He won’t. Not if I have anything to say about it.”</p><p>She pins him with a look.</p><p>“What would you do if it came to it? If you had to choose?”</p><p>He looks at her right back. He knows, after all. He’s thought about it.</p><p>“I’d choose the Alliance,” he says, and his tone is firm. “Every time.”</p><p>He doesn’t think she’s rooting around in his head, but he can never be sure. She seems satisfied with whatever she sees on his face or in his thoughts.</p><p>“What will you do?” she asks, and he can feel the tension begin to ebb away like a low tide, and they’re two friends again.</p><p>He sighs, his body aching from how tight he’d kept himself coiled.</p><p>“I’m going to see if I can get him to go to Master Vol.” he admits, and she gives him a slow nod, thinking.</p><p>“A good idea. Master Vol is a skilled healer, and I don’t think there’s anyone here who doesn’t like him.” She says with a small smile. “If anyone can help, he can.”</p><p>Theron, buoyed by her confidence, smiles.</p><p>“I hope so,” he admits, “I can’t do this by myself. It’s enough work trying to keep Major Quinn and he separated. They’d tear each other apart, and then we would have to deal with the Commander on the warpath.”</p><p>That is not a pleasant thought.</p><p>Theron isn’t sure they have enough firepower for that without calling in Darth Nox, and he surely doesn’t want to be the mug who makes <em>that</em> call.</p><p>Lana winces, and pats his hand with the grace of a debutante.</p><p>“Your sacrifice is noted,” she mutters, tired. She pauses, meeting his eyes. “Thank you, Theron.”</p><p>He frowns, baffled.</p><p>“What for? For doing something stupid again?”</p><p>She smiles, fond.</p><p>“For taking this seriously, and for understanding.”</p><p>He does understand, and he doesn’t envy her.</p><p>He would have done the same thing, albeit with far less grace.</p><p>“Thank me by keeping Major Quinn away from him.”</p><p>She laughs.</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. "Are you flirting with me?"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Theron is injured and the last person he expects shows up at his door.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the moment from the previous chapter that Theron alludes to in his conversation with Lana. ;)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thing Theron hated most about being injured wasn’t the pain, it was being <em>bored</em>.</p><p>He was sitting up in bed, which he wasn’t allowed to do, reading through some reports, which he also wasn’t allowed to do.</p><p>He injuries weren’t even that extensive, but the Commander all but used the Force to keep him in bed, assuring him that they had the time to let him recover and that he should <em>use</em> it.</p><p>The Commander wasn’t a serious man by nature, Theron knew that very well, but seeing his frown and concern made him agree every time.</p><p>He was probably being played, but disappointing Ven was like kicking a puppy. A big, green, jacked, Sith puppy.</p><p>He sighed, checking the time.</p><p>How was it that three hours had clearly gone by, but his holopad only showed ten minutes?</p><p>Criminal.</p><p>A knock on his door interrupted his silent cursing of time.</p><p>He expected it to be Lana, perhaps bringing him some caf and sympathy, or the one of the healers who would bring stims and nothing else.</p><p>Instead, a blue figure slipped into the room like a knife.</p><p>Kal smiled at him, sly and amused.</p><p>“Hey,” he greeted, voice low. “I’m not supposed to be in here.”</p><p>Theron snorted, trying to ignore how his heart leapt. Kal looked good as he ever did, but there were dark circles under his eyes and he looked exhausted.</p><p>“I know. How did you get in? Flirted with the nurse?”</p><p>Kal nodded absently, closing the door without a sound, and moving towards Theron. He wasn’t in armour, his bodysuit clinging indecently to him.</p><p>Theron <em>appreciated</em> for a minute.</p><p>“She’s a sweet thing,” Kal said with a little grin, crimson eyes crinkling at the corners. Theron’s disbelief must have shown on his face because the Chiss laughed. “She is to me, at any rate.”</p><p>“Everyone is sweet to you until they get to know you,” Theron said dryly, and Kal grinned.</p><p>“Agent Shan, are you implying that I’m not as nice as I let people think I am?” he murmured, watching Theron from under his lashes.</p><p>Theron raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Well, I’m offended.” Kal assured him, not sounding it. “Perhaps I won’t wish you well after all.”</p><p>Theron wasn’t sure why he was here.</p><p>He appreciated the company, sure, but he was under the impression that Kal was only interested in him while he was naked.</p><p>It was one sided of course, Theron was fully aware of his unfortunate feelings for the Chiss that treated everyone like disposable assets.</p><p>Kal’s expression changed, and Theron marvelled at how quickly he could go from cheery and friendly to cool and sly.</p><p>He regarded him, thinking.</p><p>“What a pity you’ll miss date night,” he said eventually, and Theron blinked. Was it really Primeday already?</p><p>“Is that what we’re calling it now?” he asked, tone as parched as Tattoine.</p><p>Kal chuckled, settling himself on the edge of Theron’s bed. He was perfectly poised, not a hair out of place, and Theron could look at him forever.</p><p>“Do they not count? We meet up and do things we enjoy. Namely, each other.” He asked, amused.</p><p>Theron shrugged, feeling hollow.</p><p>“I think dates are supposed to be a little more than that,” he murmured, “But I’ll take what I can get.”</p><p>Well, <em>that</em> was a little too honest.</p><p>Kal’s eyes sharpened at that, and it was too much to hope for that he would have missed any slip of Theron’s. Sometimes, conversation with him were exhausting.</p><p>He was quiet for a second, before he let out a long breath.</p><p>“I’ve not been on a date, a <em>real</em> one, since I left the Ascendancy.” He said quietly, form tense. He’d switched again, from sly and amused to tense and raw.</p><p>Theron smiled, ignoring how sad that was. An idea bloomed in his head, something to take his mind off being stuck in bed.</p><p>“Well, why don’t we have one now?” he asked, watching Kal’s reaction.</p><p>The Chiss stared at him, genuine surprise over his face. It disappeared quickly, replaced by a smirk that Theron didn’t like nearly as much.</p><p>“Oh? Are you flirting with me, Agent?” he cooed, moving forward so that he was leaning into Theron’s space. Something citrus brushed against Theron’s nose, and he tried not to relish the memories that brought back.</p><p>Still, he’d quite hit the nail on the head.</p><p>Theron was <em>falling</em> for him, stars knew why.</p><p>He’d always had a bad taste in men, and this was his worst choice yet.</p><p>He was teasing Theron again, but Theron was determined to pull the rug from under him.</p><p>“A little,” he admitted, forcing his tone to stay easy. “And I’d like a date with you.”</p><p>Again, Theron was treated to Kal being off balance. He knew he was possibly the only person who could get away with that, see it even, and it made his belly bloom with warmth. Kal let him see, even if it was subconscious.</p><p>“Why?” came the question that was too quick, too harsh. It was a demand, as though Theron had asked him for his ship or his rifle.</p><p>Kal wasn’t often defensive, at least not so obviously.</p><p>Theron needed to tread a fine line, here.</p><p>Too much pressure and Kal would bolt, slam down the shutters of his façade and let Theron wear himself out against an indomitable mask. He’d lose him a little more to the armour he kept around himself, cold and cruel.</p><p>If he pressed too little, he’d lose him to his own weakness. Kal would wind him around his little finger and a different mask would come out to play.</p><p>It was exhausting work, but Theron felt the reward was worth it.</p><p>He tilted his head, appearing guileless. Kal would know if he was lying, but Theron had his tightrope to walk.</p><p>“Because I want to spend some time with you,” he admitted, “And I’m bored in this bed.”</p><p>Kal watched him warily, and Theron marvelled at how defensive he was about affection. He could all but hear the other man’s thoughts racing.</p><p>
  <em>What does he want from me?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What advantage is he looking to gain?</em>
</p><p>It was all terribly sad if Theron was honest.</p><p>“I’ll bring you a book.” Kal muttered, tossing his head. His shoulders were tense in their carefully relaxed position. Theron was a spy too, and a good one. He could play the game.</p><p>He shook his head.</p><p>“I’ve read more today than I think I have done in a month,” he smiled, watching. “I’d rather watch a movie.”</p><p>The little war he could see going on would have been fascinating if it hadn’t been so heart-breaking.</p><p>To think that that he was so unused to honest affection that he was looking for a threat in a <em>movie night</em> wasn’t as funny as the holodramas made it out to be.</p><p>“I think I want something really shit,” he carried on like he wasn’t thinking any of this. Like he didn’t want to bundle Kal a hug that would make him bolt or kiss him more gently than he’d ever been allowed. “Like the Warm Hearts holos. Ven has a ton of them, and they’re all a special kind of terrible.”</p><p>Kal listened to him ramble and seemed to relax a hair. Theron wasn’t trying to trap him or trick him. He was bored and wanted to watch a holomovie with someone.</p><p>Theron could see his mind working to figure out his angle, to rationalise why he wanted Kal with him.</p><p>He let him think.</p><p>“You’re not busy, are you?” he asked, instead. “No need to stay if you are.”</p><p>An out.</p><p>Kal could take it if he wanted, pretend that he’d just dropped by to see if he wasn’t dead yet before he went off to complete some task or another.</p><p>Kal stayed where he was, and Theron pretended not to see how still he was.</p><p>“Which one?” the Chiss asked eventually, tilting his head.</p><p>It took a second for Theron to figure out what he was talking about, before his heart swelled three sizes and he had to force himself not to beam.</p><p>“The Diamond Assassin one,” he requested. “It’s got the dumbest spy scenes.”</p><p>Kal smiled, tense and awkward, but it was the best thing Theron had seen all day.</p><p>There was a small player in the room he was staying in, probably for patients to use so they didn’t off themselves out of boredom.</p><p>While Kal was flipping through the menu to find the holomovie Theron wanted, Theron was trying to keep his breathing steady.</p><p>If he were being honest, he hadn’t thought he would get this far.</p><p>He shuffled over to the side, pressing his arm against the wall, and ignoring how the wound on his belly twinged as he moved. The bandages stayed white, at least.</p><p>Theron watched him as he concentrated on his task.</p><p>Fondness crept around his heart and squeezed, curling around each rib like a sleepy cat and settling there, heavy and warm.</p><p>When the beginning reels started playing, he saw Kal sit back, stiff and defensive.</p><p>“Come on,” Theron prompted, patting the space he’d made on the bed. “You can’t sit on the end of the bed, that’s weird.”</p><p>It was like coaxing an animal to come closer, only this animal could take his hand off if he weren’t careful.</p><p>Or break his heart, which would be worse.</p><p>Thankfully, Kal seemed to decide that sitting next to him was acceptable.</p><p>He sat, back straight and knees up, his arms circling his legs. Theron let him.</p><p>The movie started and it was predictably awful, but it was the kind of awful that got them both complaining at the unrealistic intelligence work going on, the dodgy wardrobe choices and the cheesy dialogue. Kal gradually relaxed until he was lying next to Theron, listening to him talk about why backflipping off an exploding hovercycle and onto <em>another</em> hovercycle didn’t work.</p><p>Theron got into the movie again until the credits began to roll, when he looked down to ask if Kal wanted to watch the next one too.</p><p>A warm weight was settled down his side and on his shoulder, and his breath caught in his throat as he realised that Kal had fallen asleep on him.</p><p>The Chiss had <em>never</em> slept with Theron present, preferring instead to get up and head back to his own rooms after they’d had sex. If, that was, they weren’t planning on another round.</p><p>His expression was slack, and his hair was rumpled, his eyelashes brushing freckled cheeks as he slept.</p><p>He had his head on Theron’s shoulder, his hair tickling his throat and his breaths causing gooseflesh to rise on Theron’s collarbones.</p><p>One hand was squashed between them and the other was grasping Theron’s sleeping top, his grip so tenuous that it was almost non-existent.</p><p>For the longest time, Theron just <em>looked</em> at him.</p><p>It was hard not to feel like he might cry, the overwhelming feeling of affection and surprise doing a job on his emotions.</p><p>Instead, Theron merely set the holoplayer to play the next movie, and gingerly wrapped an arm around his lover, throwing one of the many blankets over them both.</p><p>He might fall asleep too, but for now he was content to savour the moment that felt like a landmark.</p><p>As the theme song played from slightly tinny speakers, Theron held him close and tried to commit the moment to memory.</p><p>It might not have been much to anyone else, but to him it meant more than he could say.</p><p>It felt like the beginning of something that he wanted, something that he would fight for if he had to.</p><p>Not yet though.</p><p>For now, he was content to curl into his blankets and feelings of bone deep affection and savour the moment.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. “I wasn’t lying when I told you that I loved you.”</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's hard, sometimes.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>TW: PTSD</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theron isn’t quite sure what wakes him.</p><p>It could have been the chill from where the covers have escaped him, or it could have been the light that’s spilling onto the bed from where the fresher door is open.</p><p>It might have been the sound of someone rifling through the first aid kit, or the whispered curses.</p><p>It might even have been the empty feeling of a bed that he knew he hadn’t been alone in when he fell asleep.</p><p>He blinks gritty eyes, instinctively reaching for where his blaster is under the pillow, fingers meeting Kal’s knife instead. He forces himself calm, recognising the voice that’s cursing as its owner fumbles something.</p><p>He sits up properly, noting the rumpled covers and how the patch of warmth next to him isn’t quite faded yet.</p><p>Kal hasn’t been up long.</p><p>The rest of the room is pitch black thrown into greyscale by the single light that’s on.</p><p>In the gloom, he can spot where his jacket is thrown over the back of the chair, and how Kal has propped his rifle by the desk. His boots are by the door, and Theron is sure that pot of hair gel isn’t his. It’s not his brand, after all.</p><p>“Kal?” he ventures carefully, and he hears the person in the fresher jump. The sound of packets falling to the floor rings out, and there’s another curse.</p><p>“Go back to bed, Theron.” He hears, and the tone is harsh and unsteady. His voice cracks on Theron’s name, and immediately Theron is throwing back the covers and padding over, careful.</p><p>He can feel his skin pebbling as the recycled air hits it, and he feels a little shiver go up his spine. Kal tends to prefer the temperature colder than usual. Theron’s sure it’s a Chiss thing.</p><p>He sees him, head bowed over the sink and his shoulders shaking. Packets from the medkit are scattered around him, and he’s only in his underwear.</p><p>Carefully, Theron approaches him and makes sure Kal hears him coming. With a tentative but determined hand, he brushes his fingertips over the space between Kal’s shoulder blades and jerks his hand away when his lover flinches.</p><p>Okay, no touching.</p><p>Kal’s hair is hanging over his face, for once free of product or style, and Theron can tell this isn’t some small thing.</p><p>“Kal?” he tries again, “What’s wrong?”</p><p>Kal’s shoulders shake like he’s shivering, but Theron knows better.</p><p>“I just need some painkillers,” he hears his lover rasp, his voice rough. He won’t look at Theron. “My head it… it’s just a headache. Go back to bed, I’ll find them.”</p><p>Theron takes a moment to process that, doesn’t do as he’s told, and bends down to pick up the scattered packets.</p><p>Sure enough, he finds a little blister pack of painkillers. There are only two pills left, and he knows he hasn’t been taking them.</p><p>They’re not strong ones, not enough to be something to worry about, but it begs the question of why his lover has been taking them.</p><p>The brand doesn’t match the rest of the military issued med-kit. A replacement. He’s gone through what was included in the pack and replaced them who knows how many times. Theron’s stomach churns unpleasantly.</p><p>“Here.” he murmurs, popping the pills from their blisters and handing them over. Kal snatches them from his hand and takes them dry. He shudders as he does so, and his shoulders sag.</p><p>“Thanks.” he mutters and doesn’t move. Theron is tempted to try touching him again, but he doesn’t. He knows better.</p><p>There’s a silence that sounds deafeningly loud to Theron’s ears, and he thinks on what he wants to say. He doesn’t want to let this go, not yet. He’s getting the feeling that this isn’t some little blip.</p><p>“Kal?” he asks, quiet. “What happened?”</p><p>Kal shakes his head. His breathing is ragged, and Theron can tell he’s trying to control his oxygen intake so that he doesn’t hyperventilate.</p><p>“Okay,” he accepts for now, “Do you want to come back to bed? It’s cold out here.”</p><p>There’s an awfully long series of seconds where he thinks Kal might not be in a state to respond, but finally he nods.</p><p>He levers himself off the sink with what seems to be a huge effort, and slinks past Theron to the waiting darkness.</p><p>Theron sees a glimpse of his face for a second, and it’s drawn quality makes a lump form in his throat.</p><p>He turns out the light and feels his way back to the bed, where Kal is sitting with his knees up to his chin, arms around his legs. It’s a defensive position of his, and it hurts to see how he hides his face like a child.</p><p>He settles next to him and, careful about touching bare skin, draws the still warm covers around them both.</p><p>He stays quiet, debating if he wants to say something.</p><p>He knows he does, but he isn’t sure if Kal is in any kind of state to talk right now.</p><p>“This is why I didn’t want to fall sleep with you,” Kal says eventually, and Theron almost makes a noise in his surprise. “I almost hurt you.”</p><p>Theron gets a chill at the idea of being asleep and being so close to his end at Kal’s hands. He pushes that thought aside.</p><p>“What happened?” he asks, soft.</p><p>“Nightmare.” Kal says, simple and defensive. He thinks Theron is going to mock him. His body is so tense his muscles must be hurting already. “I was back with the SIS.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>Not a normal nightmare, then.</p><p>“I was <em>there,” </em>he rasps, and Theron’s eyes have adjusted enough to see how he tightens his arms around his knees. “They had the codeword and I <em>couldn’t do anything.</em> I was feeling it all again.” He mutters, half muffled. “I hate them so much. I wanted to kill them. Make them <em>scream</em>. But I couldn’t. My body wasn’t my own. They moved me like… like…”</p><p>He doesn’t seem to be able to say more, but Theron can hear how his breathing is becoming uneven again, and he pauses to get himself under control.</p><p>“I see everything they made me do.” He continues, the words coming like a waterfall. “Their voices were in my head. Every single moment was on display for them, I could feel them <em>inside me</em>. They scooped me out and what they put back <em>wasn’t right</em>, Theron. <em>I can’t fix it-“</em></p><p>Theron hears how his voice breaks and risks a touch. Kal flinches horribly and for a moment Theron is sure he was going to end up stabbed. His heart in his mouth, he makes soothing noises as he curls close.</p><p>“I’m here,” he whispers, “You’re here, with me.”</p><p>Kal shakes in his arms, and Theron loves him too much.</p><p>“It <em>hurts</em>,” Kal whispers, “Sometimes stupid things make me feel sick or my head will hurt. One of the troops was talking about his entomo-ph-ph-<em>phobia</em>.” He stumbles over the last word and makes a sound of pure frustration. “I thought he said- that he said-“</p><p>Theron gives him a squeeze and <em>this</em> touch seems to help. He’s not sure what the different is, but Kal seems more accepting of full body touches like hugs or cuddles than he does when it’s just Theron’s hands.</p><p>“It’s alright,” he murmurs, “You don’t need to say it.”</p><p>“I <em>do</em>,” Kal rasps, bringing his head up to look Theron in the eyes. His own eyes, crimson and fathomless, are wide and exhausted. His expression is pinched, and his hair is hanging over his brow. “I need to force myself to get over it. I can’t keep being so <em>weak</em>.”</p><p>Theron wants to sigh.</p><p>“That,” he says firmly. “Is bullshit. PTSD doesn’t just go away because you torture yourself with it.”</p><p>Kal looks away, and Theron feels how his next breath rattles in his chest.</p><p>“I never wanted you to see this.” Kal mutters, “I hate that I can’t even do this right.”</p><p>Theron sighs.</p><p>“Kal, I signed up for this. Signed up for you.” He reminds gently, “You deal with my shit too, don’t you?”</p><p>A single crimson eye peeks out from between locks of dark hair and where his arms are hugging his knees. “Do I? This seems a bit unbalanced.” He scoffs, but there’s no heat in it. “I tried so hard to keep you in your place, you know? And yet you didn’t do the smart thing and run.”</p><p>Theron snorts softly.</p><p>“I know you did. I never do what I’m told, especially if it’s the smart thing.”</p><p>Kal managed a throaty, wet sounding laugh.</p><p>“Yeah, I figured.”</p><p>They sit in silence for long enough that Theron hears the shifts change down the hall, and he’s feeling warm again under the covers. Kal is very warm next to him, another product of Chiss biology that made them so adept at working in cold temperatures.</p><p>“Theron?”</p><p>Theron opens his eyes, having been lulled into a sleepy kind of complacency by their silence.</p><p>“Mmm?” he responds, and he feels how Kal has relaxed next to him. He’s stretched his legs out and he’s leaning against Theron, his head resting against his shoulder with Theron’s arms around him.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“Don’t mention it.” Theron assures, giving him a small squeeze. “I love you; I’m not going to ignore you if you need me.”</p><p>Kal is quiet for a moment, and Theron wonders if he’s about to argue that he doesn’t, in fact, need Theron.</p><p>He doesn’t.</p><p>“I don’t like leaning on you.” He says instead, quiet. He keeps Theron in place when he moves. “Not like <em>this</em>, idiot. I don’t like relying on you like this. I <em>can</em> handle this alone.”</p><p>“You can,” Theron says, diplomatic. He’s not so sure. “But you don’t have to.”</p><p>“Not right now, anyway.”</p><p>Theron frowns, not sure what that’s supposed to mean. Kal seems to sense his miffed silence.</p><p>“What will you do? If the Republic asks you back, I mean. Will you leave? Will we go back to hunting each other?” he asks, quiet.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>So that’s what he meant.</p><p>“Will we?” Theron asks, “Hunt each other, I mean.”</p><p>Kal shifts in his arms, moving so he can twist and face him. In the dark, all Theron can see are the lines of his face and way his crimson eyes shine.</p><p>“I... I won’t go with you, if you decide to go back to the Republic. I <em>can’t</em>.” He breathes, and Theron’s belly lurches. He’s tried not to think about this.</p><p>He sighs, not really wanting to have this conversation. “The Empire has done you no kindness.” He says carefully, “They put the restraints on you.”</p><p>Kal doesn’t flinch this time, but his eyes are steely.</p><p>“And the Republic <em>used</em> them. Honestly, the only thing still tying me to the Empire is that it's my home. I can’t explain it. You still feel like the Republic is home, don’t you?”</p><p>Theron gets that. He <em>does.</em> Kal has mentioned it before, how he believes the Empire could be so much better than it is. Some part of him still wants to fight for that future.</p><p>“I suppose so.” He says neutral.</p><p>“See?” Kal sighs, before he averts his eyes. He seems more open here, in the darkness. Just the two of them, masks cast aside. “Can I be honest with you?”</p><p>That isn’t something Theron hears often, and it makes him suspicious.</p><p>“This I have to hear.” He says with a smile, and the corner of Kal’s mouth twitches upwards for a split second.</p><p>“I would prefer to stay here, with the Alliance. I... I suppose this is where I’ve felt most comfortable in a long time.”</p><p>It’s a sentiment that Theron has heard before, on other lips. Plenty of people have said it, and it warms his heart to think that something he had a hand in building is such an important part of people’s lives.</p><p>“I can understand that.” He assures, “I feel the same way. It’s not going away, Kal.”</p><p>Kal looks frustrated, as though he can’t express himself like he wants to.</p><p>“I’m not... I’m not <em>right</em>, Theron.” He says, and it sounds like he’s pleading. The sound of it hurts something deep in Theron. “I <em>know</em> that. I want nothing more than to keep you. Even when you leave.”</p><p>Theron feels for him.</p><p>He’s so sure that Theron will leave. Will plant a knife in his back and take off back to the Republic he loves so much more than he loves Kal.</p><p>“If, Kal. <em>If</em> I leave. Which I won’t, not if I can help it.” He assures, but Kal scowls at him.</p><p>“Don’t promise me that. You're a liar. We both are. It's what we <em>do.”</em> He stresses it, and Theron knows that he thinks Theron is like he is. He isn’t. For as much as they’re both spies, they’re vastly different.</p><p>“I wasn’t lying when I told you that I loved you.” He whispers because he needs Kal to <em>know</em> that. They’re both adults, they know the score. They know they’re not going to be like normal people, they’re too <em>them.</em> This, however, Theron has no need to lie about.</p><p>“Sometimes I wish you were.” Kal murmurs, and it’s brutally honest.</p><p>Of course, it’s when he’s honest that he’s hurting Theron the most.</p><p>He smiles, lopsided and sad.</p><p>“Sorry, but I’ve never been that accommodating.”</p><p>Kal’s face, exhausted and drawn, breaks into a small smile.</p><p>He leans forward and brushes the lightest kiss over Theron’s mouth, one hand coming up to cup his jaw. He’s being gentle like he never usually is, and Theron melts into it. Into him.</p><p>“Thank you, Theron.” He breathes, staying close. He kisses him again, and gently pulls him down to curl under the covers again. Theron hears him speak again once he can’t see his face anymore. It’s a strange compulsion, and he doesn’t know the reason for it. More mysteries.</p><p>It’s tiny, but Theron hears it still.</p><p>“I love you, too.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. “I won’t hurt you.”</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Theron thought that it was Lana and the Commander that he had to be most concerned about.<br/>He should have known better.</p><p>(In the aftermath of Umbara, Theron realises that he had miscalculated.<br/>Nine had never been the most stable of people to begin with.)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Theron’s always been good with slicing. A bit of natural talent and a good helping of genuine interest helped him become the top field slicer in the SIS, and he’s sure his records haven’t yet been beaten.</p><p>He sees Ven’fir stalk the streets of the Copero, and his stomach churns.</p><p>No. Not Ven’fir. Not Ven. <em>The Commander.</em></p><p>The landing pads were conveniently free of active cams at the time when the Arastocra’s shuttle landed, but there’s a young woman keeping pace with the Sith and he doesn’t envy her.</p><p>The Commander <em>radiates</em> fury.</p><p>His face is set in grim lines, and his movements are tense and brutal.</p><p>He leaves corpses in his wake, and the lightsabers in his hands spill blood by the quart.</p><p>Theron sometimes forgets, just for a moment, what he is.</p><p>Behind the smiles and the jokes and the laid-back cheer is a<em> Sith.</em></p><p>It snarls and flexes the Force and paints the streets of this paradise crimson as it hunts him.</p><p>Theron feels his breath catch as he watches the Commander hold up a struggling Chiss by the throat, the clawed gauntlets dripping with gore as he does so. He doesn’t even use for Force, just clenches his fist and lets those metal claws do what they do best, puncturing fragile flesh.</p><p>He snaps the neck and throws the body aside, already moving on.</p><p>They’re throwing everything they can at him, and it’s barely slowing him down.</p><p>Theron realises that he knows how terrified those Jedi must have been, back when the Commander was the Empire’s hunting dog.</p><p>He swallows and keeps watching on the cams, hearing Valss talking on the holo.</p><p>He tunes him out.</p><p>Ven’fir and the mystery woman are carving their way through the Inrokini forces, and he’s getting antsy watching them.</p><p>They’ll move again soon, but for now he has nothing better to do.</p><p>They close the blast doors on them, designed to repel walkers or a strafe from a fighter.</p><p>The Commander stows his blades and reaches out with both hands.</p><p>Theron’s as Force blind as they come, but he swears he can <em>feel</em> the swell of the Force as it’s called.</p><p>The doors begin to buckle and crumple outward, the metal folding out like it’s not several inches thick. An invisible hand is shearing the metal, panels twisting and electronics sparking.</p><p>With a snarl and a herculean effort, the Commander rips the reinforced doors off their hinges. They sag, barely hanging on to their supports, several tons of metal sad and broken.</p><p>He doesn’t smile.</p><p>He draws his blades again, and stalks inside.</p><p>Theron breathes, calming his racing heart.</p><p>He switches the feeds to the halls and follows the whirl of crimson and violet that leaves corpses in it’s wake, barely slowing it’s relentless march onward.</p><p>Theron swears shadows lick at his heels, and the casual way he flexes for Force to do what most Jedi or Sith would balk at is telling.</p><p>He tears a fuel cannister off it’s housing with one hand and sends it careening into a squad of soldiers, detonating it with a thrown saber. He moves through flame and smoke liken he’s born in them, and Theron sees him twist his hand as tongues of flame leap at his command.</p><p>An officer dies screaming, and another tries to run before there’s a crimson blade sticking out of her chest. It’s viciously removed, and she crumples.</p><p>The Commander steps over her body and doesn’t spare her a glance.</p><p>The chilling thing about him is that he’s <em>dogged</em>.</p><p>He’s like a hound with it’s nose to the ground, barely pausing to savage whatever blocks its path before it’s moving on again, steady.</p><p>Theron realises what these people are to him.</p><p>Inconveniences.</p><p>He tears through them like they’re training droids and leaves them to die behind him.</p><p>He’s not interested in them.</p><p>He’s only interested in Theron.</p><p>Theron swallows, and switches the cam feeds again.</p><p>Zenta doesn’t even give them the courtesy of an introduction before she fires on them, so she’s smarter than Theron thought.</p><p>It’s not enough.</p><p>It was never, <em>ever</em> going to be enough.</p><p>The rogue Syndic doesn’t go down easy, her face furious and her hair coming loose from its pins.</p><p>Theron betrayed her without a second thought, and he knew she was going to her death.</p><p>After all, no outcome would be good for her.</p><p>This, though…</p><p>He sighs.</p><p>Zenta is spitting, furious and panicked, and she’s struggling to her feet to try to square up with the Commander.</p><p>It’s useless posture, and Theron wants to scream at her to <em>just stay down.</em></p><p>The audio crackles and it’s quieter than he would like, but it’s perfectly audible.</p><p>He turns it up.</p><p>The Sith’s blades hum in his hands as he stares at Zenta. She’s taller than him by an inch or so, but she’s favouring one side and he’s only got a cut over one cheek.</p><p>“You helped Theron Shan. Where is he?” he hears the Commander demand, his voice low and dripping with menace. It’s so hard to reconcile him with the man that hugged him when he’d seen him on Odessen for the first time, or the man who brought him caf when he worked too long.</p><p>Those moments made these ones all the harder.</p><p>Zenta just glares and jerks her head in a gesture of defiance.</p><p>Ven'fir's eyes blaze.</p><p>“Kneel,” he commands, his mouth a snarl.</p><p>When she doesn’t, his anger sparks. He has never been more Sith to Theron than in this moment.</p><p>“<em>Kneel!” </em>he roars, and the force of his fury sends the tiles cracking and the air to shimmer with heat.</p><p>Zenta’s knees buckle, sending her to the floor with a cry. It looks like the very air is so heavy it’s crushing her, and she’s gasping for breath as he pours his fury into her.</p><p>By the time the mystery woman lays a hand on the Commander’s arm, Zenta is sobbing.</p><p>Valss calls him over and Theron turns off the feeds in an instant, desperate to have something to do that isn’t watching death approach with dogged steps.</p><hr/><p>He listens in the radio chatter as they move, and he hears the desperate calls for help over the channels he’s monitoring. It sends prickles of nerves to his extremities, until he realises that some of these squads aren’t in the Commander’s path at all.</p><p>He hadn’t thought that there might have been a fourth person in that shuttle, but as he hears panicked calls over the holochannels from squads that are nowhere near the Commander, he thinks that perhaps he should have.</p><hr/><p>Theron isn’t sure why he notices it.</p><p>It's a tiny, almost imperceptible glint against the rock that gives it away.</p><p>It's pure luck that he even spots it, a stray ray of sunlight catching some small part of the rifle that is painted matte for a reason.</p><p>There's only one sniper that would have come with the Commander, and everything seems to slow as he feels his body react.</p><p>It's like tar as he pushes Valss away from him, the Chiss stumbling as he is taken by surprise.</p><p>“Run,” he urges him, and the Chiss just blinks at him. Theron shoves him again, adrenaline sending painful prickles to his toes and making his breath hitch. “<em>Sniper!”</em></p><p>The round impacts where his head had just been, had he not needed to move to push Valss.</p><p>They’re not ready.</p><p>Panic threatens to surge and overwhelm him, but he pushes it down.</p><p>No.</p><p>He can’t stop.</p><p>They don’t know it yet, but he <em>cannot</em> stop.</p><p>They’ve still got a few fighters with him, stolen from Zenta before they left. They’re following Valss, not him, but right now it’s almost the same thing.</p><p>One of them, a tall Chiss with a rifle slung over their back, raises a monocular to their eye as they all take cover.</p><p>The sniper doesn’t fire again, but Theron knows that doesn’t mean <em>anything</em>.</p><p>“I didn’t know they brought another.” the Chiss, Chare he thinks they’re called, grunts as they search the snowscape.</p><p>Theron swallows painfully.</p><p>“You remember how I said I left someone behind?” he asks, voice low. He clears his throat, his lungs threatening to close on him as his heart tries to beat out of his chest. “Well, there he is.”</p><p>Chare looks grim.</p><p>“We can take some pissed off ex-boyfriend.” They assure, and Theron swallows a hysterical laugh.</p><p>“You <em>really</em> can’t.” He says, tense. “We need to leave <em>now</em>.”</p><p>Chare glances to him, a frown knitting their brows.</p><p>“We need to take care of it,” they say slowly, like they’re not sure what the problem is. Theron is treading a dangerous line, here.</p><p>If the Chiss think he’s still attached… no.</p><p>Theron shakes his head, scowling.</p><p>“And who do you think knows more about what’s coming, me or you?” he demands.</p><p>“You know we can’t let him live.” Comes the response, and he’s sure he detects some suspicion.</p><p>“If you go down there,” he says slowly, meeting their eyes, “You’ll be torn apart.”</p><p>“I won’t go alone.”</p><p>“Unless you send in a fucking walker, it won’t be enough.” Theron says, desperately trying to get them to understand. “Maybe not even then.”</p><p>He takes a breath, needing them to understand.</p><p>“That,” he says, gesturing to the direction the sniper, he doesn’t want to think of him any other way, “Is the Empire’s best assassin. Do you understand what that means? It means he’s a kriffing <em>monster</em>.”</p><p>Chare looks away and goes back to staring through their monocular.</p><p>Theron can’t help but make a sound of frustration and lets Valss drag him away under the cover of a particularly strong flurry of snow.</p><p>His skin itches, and he swears he can feel the snipers sights on him.</p><p>He tries not to think about it, and fails.</p><hr/><p>They try and check in the with Chare and their squad, but all the get is static.</p><p>Theron swallows painfully and shares a grim look with Valss.</p><p>“We need to keep moving.” he says and turns away.</p><hr/><p>They’re not fast enough.</p><p>They’re still pouring over the map when Valss feels something in the Force and his eyes widen, and they both turn.</p><p>The Commander is wreathed in power and fury, and Theron loses his breath when those amber eyes lock with his own.</p><p>It’s like being pinned in place by the Force, but he knows it’s only fear that roots him to one spot.</p><p>He’s staring a krayt dragon in the eyes, can feel its breath on his face and hear death in its steps.</p><p>He forces himself to breathe again and does his best to stare back. He needs to keep a lid on his emotions. He knows the Commander is extremely sensitive to them; it’s one of the qualities that made him such a good hunter.</p><p>The woman is there, but she’s hanging back. He keeps an eye on her, but that plan goes out of the window when someone else joins the Commander, his white armour blending in with the snowstorm. He’s wearing his helmet for once, and he’s cradling the behemoth of a rifle that Theron’s watched him maintain a thousand times before. It’s been propped at the end of his bed before, and he recalls watching with fascinated eyes as it was disassembled, every part laid out before being reassembled. Again, and again until he’d got it under a time that he was happy with.</p><p>He stands at the Commander’s side, an armoured, faceless killer.</p><p>Theron wants to throw it all away.</p><p>He wants to run to him and fall into his arms and beg for their help. He doesn’t want to do this alone.</p><p>But he <em>can’t.</em></p><p>It would be a death sentence for them and countless more.</p><p>He steels his nerve.</p><p>“Theron Shan,” he hears the Commander call, and his accent is sharper than usual, cutting through the howl of the snow with fury that seems to burn the air as the words leave his mouth.</p><p>He’s a nightmare in black armour, the kind of sight that Theron knows has cleared battlefields.</p><p>“You have one chance,” he calls, raising a humming violet blade to point at them, the other held at his side. “<em>Surrender</em>.”</p><p>Theron knows he can’t.</p><p>He shakes his head, and the Commander’s expression darkens.</p><p>Valss holds out a hand to stop Theron before he can speak.</p><p>“You need time,” he mutters, grim. “I can give it to you.”</p><p>Theron knows exactly what he means.</p><p>“No-“ is all he manages to get out. He’s not interrupted by Valss or even by the Commander.</p><p>A shot rings out and it’s all he can do to realise that there’s something beeping beneath their feet before it detonates and sends the stones they’re standing on tumbling down.</p><p>Theron scabbles for a grip on <em>something</em> and finds it, hanging on to the edge of a flagstone.</p><p>Valss lets himself slip, twisting like a cat and landing in the snow with his blade drawn.</p><p>Theron wishes he could do the same without breaking his neck.</p><p>This is all <em>wrong.</em></p><p>They were supposed to be gone by now, supposed to be safely out of reach of the Alliance.</p><p>Instead, Theron is closer than ever.</p><p>He heaves and tries to climb up, but he loses his balance and slides even further.</p><p>He’s a sitting duck up here, and any second now a round from that rifle can end him.</p><p>He cranes his neck to see what’s going on, and he sees Valss and the Commander circling each other, lightsabers drawn.</p><p>They’ve locked eyes, and the Commander looks like he wants to tear the other man to shreds.</p><p>The air is thick with tension and power, and Theron really doesn’t want to be caught in the middle of that.</p><p>The shuttle is still minutes away.</p><p>Valss shifts his weight and in a movement that’s too fast for Theron to see, they’re on each other.</p><p>Their blades clash and it’s a deadly duel of light and power that takes his breath away.</p><p>The Commander is blisteringly fast and agile. For such a tall, broad man, he can move like he’s half his size, and he uses his impressive reach to never be where Valss is aiming. He hits like a hovertank from how Valss buckles under the onslaught, and the air shivers from them both.</p><p>He can see the sniper aiming down his sights at Valss, but the duel is far too fast paced to let him get a shot off.</p><p>Any moment now, he’s going to turn that rifle on Theron and he’s not going to be able to do a damn thing to stop it.</p><p>He takes a breath and lets go.</p><p>Ha lands with a grunt and his legs buckle under him, sending a jolt of pain up his spine.</p><p>He doesn’t seem to have broken anything.</p><p>Good.</p><p>That’s… that’s good.</p><p>He’s not hanging from a rock anymore, but the movement of his fall has caught the attention of the sniper.</p><p>A faceless mask turns to him and Theron is frozen.</p><p>This isn’t his lover. This isn’t the man who’s kissed him and smiled for him and hurt him in ways that he can’t describe. It’s not the man who Theron has seen cry as his flashbacks overwhelm him, not the man who has grinned at him and made him weak at the knees.</p><p>He’s not facing Kal right now, he’s facing Cipher Nine.</p><p>He watches as Nine stows his rifle on his back, the weapon collapsing down to a more portable size.</p><p>Slowly, deliberately, he draws the machete that’s sheathed at the small of his back.</p><p>He wants to make this personal. Close quarters. Smart, considering that the rifle would likely be more of a hinderance than anything right now.</p><p>Theron doesn’t want to do this.</p><p>Every moment this drags on is another twist of the knife in the backs of people he loves.</p><p>He draws his blaster.</p><p>The Commander and Valss are throwing up snow as they move, and Theron can feel his skin prickle as the Commander reaches into the Force.</p><p>The sniper moves, circling him. His footwork is perfect, Theron notes with a little derision. Of course it is.</p><p>Theron wants to hate him.</p><p>He shouldn’t even <em>be here.</em></p><p>But he is.</p><p>And Theron knows that he can’t match him, not in a fight like this.</p><p>He doesn’t have a choice, though. He’s got no tricks left, no smoke bombs like in the crappy holos Ven likes, no sudden backup.</p><p>They’re circling each other, neither seeming to want to make the first move.</p><p>A cry from the direction of the two Force users has Theron instinctively glancing over, and he realises his mistake as something in his peripheral vision moves.</p><p>He barely has time to bring up his blaster when Kal is on him and they’re trading blows. The machete is dangerously close to his skin and Theron is very aware of how completely outclassed he is in a fight like this. He can out-slice Kal any day of the week, but the Chiss can put him flat on the mats just as often. Theron is a spy, but Kal is an <em>assassin.</em></p><p>He’s coming at Theron with a kind of ferocity that is <em>terrifying</em>, and Theron feels panic rising in his throat.</p><p>His blaster goes flying and as he manages to duck the machete that, had it connected, would have opened his throat.</p><p>Kal is aiming to kill, and for some reason that hits Theron harder than it has any right to.</p><p>He fumbles as he rights himself and lashes out with an elbow that sinks into Kal’s solar plexus, and he uses the opportunity to scramble back. Kal aims his blade at him and Theron stumbles out of the way, losing his footing and impacting heavily in the compacted snow. He has mere seconds before Kal is on him again, but his fingers snag his blaster just in time and he brings it up to loose a shot right into his face.</p><p>Kal rears back, his helmet cracked and ruined. Through the broken plexiglass of his visor, Theron can see one furious crimson eye.</p><p>“Kal,” he pants, heart painfully beating against his chest like it wants to escape his body. “Please, you don’t have to-“</p><p>He can’t finish his sentence, because Kal is on him again. A lucky strike has the machete skittering across the snowy stone, and then they’re trading blows bare handed.</p><p>Theron feels every hit rattle his bones, and that single visible eye is furious. Kal isn’t speaking, isn’t pulling his hits, and he’s going for the kill.</p><p>Theron defends and dodges like he’s never done so before, but it isn’t enough.</p><p>A feint has him falling again, hitting the ground hard enough to make his head swim.</p><p>Kal is on him in a second and as much as Theron struggles with increasing panic, won’t be thrown off. He’s grabbed the machete from where it stopped skidding earlier, and the blade is catching the watery sunlight.</p><p>The ruined helmet stares down at him, and Theron waits for a blow. The crimson eye is wide and manic, and he’s seen that look before. Kal isn’t okay. He’s so very far from okay right now that it’s terrifying. There are tear tracks on what little blue skin he can see.</p><p>There’s a heartbeat of hesitation, and Theron feels like the moment lasts for an age.</p><p><em>I’m sorry, </em>he wants to say.<em> I’m so, so sorry. I told you I would never leave you, and that’s exactly what I’ve done.</em></p><p>
  <em>I’ve let you break after I promised you that I would keep you together. Just another in a long line of betrayals.</em>
</p><p>But he doesn’t say any of that. He’s lost his breath and it’s all he can do to stare up into that ruined helmet and into the single crimson eye.</p><p>Kal blinks away tears and his gaze sharpens into something ugly. With purpose, he brings the blade down.</p><p>It doesn’t connect.</p><p>There’s a hum, like a bug near Theron’s ear, before there’s the sound of cracking plastoid and the splintering of ceramic plating.</p><p>Theron’s vision turns yellow, and his perception of time slows as that crimson eye widens.</p><p>Valss’ lightsaber is sticking out of his chest, and Theron can feel the heat of it. He can smell burning plastic.</p><p>No.</p><p>
  <em>No, no, no, no, no, no-</em>
</p><p>He can’t help but whisper the word too, horrified.</p><p>Kal seems held in place by the blade sticking out of his chest, and he stares at Theron as though he can’t quite believe what’s happened. Blood is leaking from where his armour is splintered, and Theron can feel it hitting him.</p><p>The blade is ripped out of him and the force of it sends him toppling to one side where he doesn’t move.</p><p>There’s a cry of “No!” and Theron dimly notes that the Commander is charging to them, fighting his way through Force wisps that Valss has summoned.</p><p>Theron stumbles in his haste to reach the crumpled body, and he feels like he’s about to be sick. He can see the single eye staring at him, open. Lifeless.</p><p>Kolto. He needs kolto and stims and-</p><p>Valss hauls him up.</p><p>“No, I need to-!” Theron starts, but it dies on his tongue as the shuttle blots out what little sunlight there is.</p><p>“Go,” Valss hisses, and he’s got blood running from his mouth. One eye is ruined, claw marks taking off half his face. His cheek is ribbons, and he can barely hold himself upright.</p><p>For a moment, Theron can’t move.</p><p>Then, Valss pushes him and sends him stumbling towards the shuttle.</p><p>“<em>Go!”</em> he roars and turns just in time to meet the Commander’s blades. The Sith is wide eyed and enraged, his mouth pulled back into a snarl that exposes sharp teeth.</p><p>Theron takes the order and holds it close.</p><p>He fills his brain with it.</p><p>Shuttle.</p><p>He needs to get on that shuttle.</p><p>He limps towards it, backing away as the Commander engages Valss again. Something in the air turns heavy and suffocating, and in a moment of horrific clarity, he sees the Commander’s eyes burn orange crimson.</p><p>Shuttle.</p><p>Shuttle.</p><p>Shuttle.</p><p>The path seems insurmountable, but he drags his battered body to the steps and shoves his pain away as he does so.</p><p>He steps over the unconscious form of the woman that had accompanied the Commander and pays her no mind.</p><p>Shuttle.</p><p>A hand grasps him as he reaches for the open doors, the heat from the exhausts and the hum of the engines making his teeth ache.</p><p>They pull him aboard, the pilot dumping him there as he hurries back to the controls and takes it off auto.</p><p>Theron lays there, snow in his eyes, and watches as the Commander knocks Valss’ lightsaber from his hand and separates his head from his body.</p><p>Theron is going to be <em>sick</em>.</p><p>Valss crumples, his strings cut. His head rolls into the snow and stains it.</p><p>The Commander hesitates for a moment, looking back to Theron. He seems to decide something, and he rushes to Kal’s side, hand to his earpiece.</p><p>He’s made a choice, just like Theron did.</p><p>Theron has no doubt that if he wanted, the Commander could bring down the shuttle and him with it.</p><p>The window to do so dwindles as they fight the snowstorm, but the Commander doesn’t look up from where he’s hunched over the figure in white armour.</p><p>The shuttle doors close and he desperately tries to hold onto the hope that the Commander will be in time.</p><p>If he isn’t already <em>out</em> of time, that is.</p><p>The doors close and he’s left with the memory of a single crimson eye staring out from a cracked helmet, and blood staining the snow.</p><hr/><p>Nathema is… something.</p><p>Theron will forever be grateful to Lana for her logic, and he thinks this has made up for her own transgression against him, all those years ago.</p><p>He swallows hard, his lungs burning.</p><p>“How is he?”</p><p>The Commander, <em>Ven’fir</em>, glances at him as they walk. His expression is grim and tense, and he’s holding himself so tightly coiled that Theron’s sure he’s going to snap.</p><p>“You mean Kal?” he asks, pointed. His tone is hostile. “You don’t have the right to ask me that.”</p><p>There it is. Ven’fir might believe him, partly thinks to Lana who stayed his hand long enough to let Theron talk, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgiven. Not by a long shot.</p><p>Still, Theron takes a gamble.</p><p>“I think I do.” He says, defiant. His heart thuds in his chest and he maintains eye contact. He knows Ven’fir, and he needs to know this.</p><p>The defiance is a mistake.</p><p>He sees Ven'fir's eyes, <em>Sith eyes</em>, widen and rage twist his features into something bestial and ugly.</p><p>Theron feels armoured, clawed fingers wrap around his throat.</p><p>Surprise swiftly gives way to panic as Ven'fir squeezes, baring his teeth in a snarl. His eyes are blown wide and Theron has never been more afraid of him than he is now. Not even on Copero, when the creeping feeling of being <em>hunted </em>made him breathless.</p><p>He claws at the hand around his throat, fingers scrabbling uselessly against armour.</p><p>He feels the bones in his neck creak under the strain and his vision starts to fade around the edges.</p><p>He thrashes and struggles, and panic begins to clench around his heart.</p><p>He’s going to die here because he mouthed off to a Sith.</p><p>A jerk, and there are a few disorienting seconds where his head swims with dizziness so strongly that he sways.</p><p>Lana is standing between them, eyes blazing, her hand wrapped around Ven'fir's wrist.</p><p>“You'd regret it.” She says, tone firm.</p><p>Ven'fir’s stare cuts through him as he sucks in air, bracing himself on a rock before his knees give way.</p><p>“It's my fault he was there.” Theron rasps, heart painful in his chest. “I... at least tell me if he's alive. <em>Please</em>.”</p><p>Ven’fir’s stare is molten.</p><p>“He’s alive.” He snarls, “<em>Just</em>.”</p><p>Theron feels his body sag.</p><p>For a moment, it’s as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders and placed around his heart.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to feel, and his head swims.</p><p>“Okay,” he rasps, choked. He feels like he’s going to cry. Wetness rolls down his cheeks. “Okay.”</p><hr/><p>Theron wakes in the stark white of the medical wing.</p><p>He feels warm and comfortable, and his head feels wadded with wool.</p><p>He has vague memories of waking now and then to healers over him, and one stark one of Ven’fir watching over him, expression unreadable.</p><p>Flashes of Lana’s blonde hair feature too, and he recalls Beryon’s voice, pitched low and awkward as he talks. Others filter in and out.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to feel.</p><p>He’s feeling so much it’s like he’s feeling nothing. It’s all so <em>much</em>.</p><p>He moves a little, to test his mobility. A twinge in his belly where Atrius had stabbed him, but otherwise not bad.</p><p>He doesn’t want to think about how close they were.</p><p>It’s <em>done.</em></p><p>He’s still in mission mode, still checking his thoughts and feelings because being undercover is one thing but being undercover near a Force user is quite another.</p><p>His body feels like it’s made of lead, but he manages to throw back the covers with more of a struggle than he likes.</p><p>He still has an objective. This one is his own, but no less ignorable.</p><p>His toes curls as they meet the cold floor tiles, and he shivers.</p><p>Kal.</p><p>He needs to find Kal.</p><p>He doesn’t get more an a few paces before a healer spots him and hurries over, her black eyes concerned.</p><p>“Shan, I-“</p><p>“Please,” he manages, and needs to clear his throat and try again. “Where’s Kal?”</p><p>The healer blinks at him, inky nautolan eyes expressive.</p><p>“Shan, you need to rest.” She murmurs, but he shakes his head and pulls free when she gently grasps his arm.</p><p>“I can’t,” he mutters, “Not until I know where Kal is. I… <em>please</em>.”</p><p>She sighs, and there’s a flicker of a nictating membrane over her eyes as she regards him.</p><p>“He’s improving,” she says eventually, “I need you to go back to bed, now.”</p><p>“But-“</p><p>She frowns.</p><p>“Bed.” She orders, her temper seemingly to fray. “You’re not cleared to leave yet and frankly; we spent enough time putting you back together. I don’t want to do it again if some of the people out there get hold of you.”</p><p>Theron lets himself be led back to his bed, clinging to the thought that Kal is alive. Just.</p><p>He hasn't gone to his death thinking that Theron has betrayed them, betrayed <em>him</em>. Hasn't had his life snuffed out with hurt in his heart and hate in his eyes, everything he is wiped away in the face of Theron's actions.</p><p>The what-if chills him, and anxiety makes him feel sick.</p><p>He’s not forgiven, then.</p><p>He didn’t expect to be.</p><p>He might have let himself hope, but he’s not that optimistic.</p><p>He’s tired already, and he thinks that perhaps he’s more injured than his initial assessment told him.</p><p>He’s asleep as his head hits the pillow.</p><hr/><p>The next time he wakes up, the lights are dim in their strips, and Kal is standing over him with a knife.</p><p>His heart is thundering in his ears and he’s gone from asleep to wide awake so fast it <em>hurts.</em></p><p>Theron’s not convinced this isn’t a dream, but that thought dissolves as Kal presses the blade against his throat.</p><p>In the gloom, his eyes shine.</p><p>Theron drinks him in, even as his eyes instinctively drop to the wound that he knows he won’t be able to see.</p><p>Kal looks tired and thin. His hair is longer and there’s stubble on his jaw. His expression is icy, and Theron loves him so much his throat closes up when he thinks about saying anything.</p><p>“Did you complete your mission?” Kal asks, voice low. It’s a demand.</p><p>Theron swallows the lump in his throat and forces his tongue into compliance.</p><p>“Yes.” he breathes and can’t say much more than that. The metal of the blade is freezing against his skin, and the way the metal shines reminds him of Kal’s eyes.</p><p>The Chiss looks <em>terrible</em>, and Theron knows that he’s done that.</p><p>Guilt is eating at him in ways he can’t describe, and the reality of what he’s facing trickles in in a more tangible way than before.</p><p>The mission is <em>over</em>, and yet it’s not. Not really.</p><p>He’s here, but he can’t fill the same space as he used to.</p><p>He’s changed shape, or perhaps the space he used to fill has changed?</p><p>Maybe both.</p><p>Kal’s expression is like broken glass. It’s sharp and fragile and Theron can see right through it.</p><p>He’s barely holding himself together.</p><p>Kal leans in and presses a kiss to his mouth, soft and barely there. The bite of the blade is still present, and his hold doesn’t waver.</p><p>Theron wonders if this is the moment where he ends up like so many others, dead at Cipher Nine’s hand with a kiss and a blade in their neck.</p><p>Kal pulls away but stays close enough that Theron can count the freckles that speckle over his nose and cheeks.</p><p>“I want to gut you,” he whispers, “And I want to keep you close. I… <em>you left me</em>.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Theron manages, and it’s never, <em>ever</em> going to be enough. “I’m <em>so sorry</em>.”</p><p>Kal’s eyes shine, and Theron feels the hand that holds the blade shake.</p><p>Slowly, he brings a hand up and takes it from him. Kal lets him, and the tears finally escape his eyes and roll down his cheeks.</p><p>“We’re not okay.” he whispers like he needs Theron to <em>know</em>, “I don’t trust you.”</p><p>That hurts, even though it has no right to.</p><p>Theron nods.</p><p>“I know. I wouldn’t expect you to.” He admits, “I hurt you.”</p><p>Kal’s eyes flash.</p><p>“You <em>hurt me,”</em> he snaps, but his voice cracks. “But <em>I</em> <em>let you.”</em></p><p>That’s it right there, isn’t it?</p><p>Kal let him in.</p><p>Let him see the ugly, vulnerable thing under the smiles and the charm.</p><p>And Theron had taken that, wormed his way inside, promised everything would be okay and-</p><p>And then he’d left.</p><p>Torn a hole where he used to be and let hate fill it.</p><p>Theron’s undone what progress they’d made. Kal was never okay, but Theron’s ripped open old wounds and made new ones while he was at it.</p><p>“I love you.” he whispers, and Theron wishes he hated him. Wishes that <em>this</em> weren’t the moment he finally said the words for Theron to hear, as an admittance of how much Theron had hurt him.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, and gently coaxes Kal onto the bed. He goes easily, and Theron hates the power he has over Kal. It feels wrong. “I know.”</p><p>He says it like an apology.</p><p>
  <em>I’m sorry I let you love me.</em>
</p><p>Kal curls up to his side and buries his nose into the crook of Theron’s neck, and Theron wraps his arms around him.</p><p>In the morning, this would change.</p><p>They’ll wake up different people. Less vulnerable. Angry. Hurt. Closed off.</p><p>They’re not okay.</p><p>They so far from being okay that’s it’s not even in the same sector.</p><p>Perhaps they’ll figure it out.</p><p>He doesn’t know.</p><p>He still needs to face the world. He needs to face Lana and Ven.</p><p>That thought is a painful one, but with it comes the feeling of weightlessness.</p><p>He must face them, but they’re <em>there</em> to hate him.</p><p>Kal curls close, holding onto him like Theron might disappear again if he lets go.</p><p>The morning will come, but for now they have this calm before the inevitable storm.</p><p>He’ll take it.</p><p>Theron holds him close, needing the closeness after thinking he might never have it again.</p><p>“I won’t hurt you,” he whispers, “Not again.”</p><p>Kal doesn’t reply, but Theron feels his hands clench. Theron can’t promise that.</p><p>He <em>can’t</em>.</p><p>They’re so very not okay.</p><p>One day, though, they might be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that's it! Apex is done! I hope you enjoyed the ride! ^_^</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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